Tories daily poll lead goes up by a point
March 10th, 2010| YouGov daily poll (The Sun) | Mar 10 | Mar 9 |
|---|---|---|
| CONSERVATIVES | 37% | 36% |
| LABOUR | 32% | 32% |
| LIB DEMS | 17% | 20% |
| LAB to CON swing from 2005 | 4% | 3.5% |
And the Lib Dems slump after last night’s boost
So the Labour share remains stable tonight with the Tories edging up and the Lib Dems taking quite a hit.
This will bring some relief to the blue team which yesterday touched a two and half year low with its 36% share. Meanwhile the red camp might just be getting a bit uneasy that the big improvements of February are not being sustained in spite of the apparent benefit of the Ashcroft affair.
This is, of course, getting very tight. A gap of five points together with the differential that YouGov found last week in its key marginals polls puts the Tories in within a shout of getting an overall majority.
But if they slip even by only a little then Labour could end up with most seats.
Clearly this poll moves up and down everyday and, no doubt, the Lib Dems will be disappointed that their 20% share of yesterday has not been sustained.
Tomorrow we should get the first PB/Angus Reid poll of the month.
Mike Smithson
MessageSpace Advertising
Groan…
My word …. goodness me !!
That will do me
Don’t like the new format for poll results
Early?
up down up down - are people losing interest in these daily polls?
All with margin of error.
meaningless.
Yawn…as you were.
Good night as we know it is about 9%
Labour are going to sturggle to break out of the low 30s - only YouGov has them out of that box, and only occasionally
Low 30s (32 and below) for Labour = Tory largest party
Sure as Tory 40s = Tory majority
Lib Dem number yesterday was clearly a rogue
Ohhh…what a surprise !!
ISTR a song called “Tory Boy”
Alcoholic kind of mood
lose my clothes, lose my lube
cruising for a piece of fun
looking out for number one
different partner every night
so narcotic outta sight
what a gas, what a beautiful ass.
Kind of buzz that lasts for days
had some help from insect ways
comes across all shy and coy
just another Tory boy.
Woman man or modern monkey
just another happy junkie
fifty pounds, press my button
going down.
Is that the end of Cleggs Bounce?
Still Labour very much in with a shout, and Tories not been subject to any real scrutiny which they have proved is when they fall apart.
All to play for.
Smeary Gobble on the?
Although I have to say, Rod was worrying me about the poll, I thought he might have had a whiff of something
Cor it’s all very exciting innit.
If you had offered Labour a 5 point deficit this close to the election at any time in the past couple of years they probably would have bitten your hand off.
Lib Dem share moving around by more than MOE without any drivers is a bit strange. I guess we treat yesterday as a rogue (within the Yougov series, that is).
Chris Huhne pretending to be Jesus must really have hit the Lib Dems’ Christian vote.
Lord Ashcroft.
More bollocks……
Broken Liberals on the slide
18
Lets rephrase that,. Its a You Gov defecit.
FPT
Samantha Cameron to show human side of her ‘Tory boy’
http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2010/mar/10/samantha-cameron-tv-interview-mcdonald
20
Since this YouGov daily poll began, has Labour ever dipped under 32%?
As I have just completed a YouGov VI poll I am slightly perplexed as they did not ask me which party I support (as opposed to am willing to vote on 06-May-2010). I wonder if they will denigrate my opinion and cast me as disloyal Labour?
It’s getting silly and confusing. What next: marking me down as senile/Lib-Dem….
More fantasy yo-yoing from YouGov then. I can’t see why they want to destroy their hard-earned reputation in this manner.
25 - see 14
Lord Ashcroft
14 You forgot
‘Eyeholes in a paper bag, greatest lay I ever had’
Placebo…. classic stuff
24 - I seem to remember Tory supporters being big You Gov fans around London Mayoral election time. Can’t think why you have changed your mind. Tell me, which pollster do you think is most accurate at the moment?
27. The very first poll they were on 30%
If Labour win the next election will education standards improve?
21 - Will improve
67 - Will not improve
22 - Don’t know
Electoral Calculus:
Labour largest party.
Labour short 34 of majority
http://www.electoralcalculus.co.uk/
Lib Dems up 3,then down 3.
These YouGov polls are giving me serious wh1plash.
Not that I am complaining, you cant beat a bit of BDSM,
re 4. What don’t you like?
With ten pollsters and a fast-moving general election campaign we needed a standard template in HTML so that poll results could be put up quickly and clearly.
If you have any thoughts then I would be delighted to ream them.
8. No change isn’t meaningless. At least we can be assured that yesterday’s LD figure was an outlier.
That said, the budget and the debates remain as huge known unknowns and their effect will greatly outweigh the day to day froth we’re getting at the moment.
On the subject of the budget, an anecdote from work: a colleague (female, about early 40s, not particularly politically interested), commented unprompted at the price of petrol and blamed rising taxes for it. While that’s only partly true in fact (the VAT increase in January has had an effect), the important thing is the perception.
fpt 389 There is plenty of actual evidence against Brown see rawnsleys book, see redrag etc
What evidence have you got for Caulson. None as far as I can see.
So shockingly enough a smear from a labour supporter.
Hey…if Labour are so rubbish why are the Tories only on 37% ?
Blimey, sky news almost balenced in reporting defence ruck today
Hung Parliament
Labour edge out the Tories on seats , 34 short of a majority.
LAB 292
CON 286
Liberals getting viciously mutilated in the FPP mash-up.
LIB 40 (27 seats down on 2005)
34.jsfl, thanks.
14% for “others” ? isn’t that a record for the daily Yougov?
33 ICM
36 Gabble
Lord Ashcroft.
33. Yougov have changed their methodology for the tracker and they’ve lost 25% of their Labour supporters too since last September. So unless you have a point about Yougov polls post September 2009 any such assertions are irrelevent and only indicate ignorance.
UKPR:
Labour largest party.
Hung Parliament, Labour 29 seats short.
http://ukpollingreport.co.uk/blog/swing-calculator
These are the sort of polls that will see the UKIPers returning back to the Tory fold (I hope)
40 Its too complicated for you to understand.
38
David Herdson
Its meaningless in terms of peoples interpretations of the daily figures. I was thinking of the Con/Lab figures, your point about the LD’s is well made, and probably has a lot to do with weightings and which voters You Gov find.
Noone has yet explained to me why You Gov find so few Labour voters and have to adjust to such an extent.
As I said yesterday we Lib Dems have learned to treat triumph and disaster etc. I wan not triumphal yesterday nor is it a disaster today. These polls wobble like yo-yos. I assume others are up 2
I will point out that the supplementaries have generally been bad for Labour throughout these ‘positive’ polls.
FPT >> 333, FT - Marc Clark was ONE of the Anzio mistakes, but certainly NOT the only one.
For one, in “Anzio 1944: The Beleaguered Beachhead” (Osprey) Stephen Zaloga states that, “While there was little question that a amphibious operation wsa the solution to the stalemate in front of the Gustav line” he goes on to note that there was in fact a very severe shortage of LSTs available after Salerno.
Zaloga also notes that, “No Allied commander played a greater role in promoting Operation Shingle [the Anzio landing] than Prime Minister Winston Churchill. The landing plans had largely fallen out of favor until mid-December 1943 when Chuchill latched up it as a means to reinvigorate the Italian campaign and seed along the liberation of Rome. Churchill’s considerable political influence was the major reason why the operation proceeded in spite of the misgivings of tactical commanders.”
Further note that the main Allied commander on the ground at Anzio was Major General John P. Lucas USA, of whom Zaloga writes, “the bloody autum fighting in Italy left him exhausted and depressed. He was skeptical about the prospects for Operation Shingle from the outset, and his known aversion to the plan led to his exclusion at key conferences involved in planning the operation, including Churchill’s January [1944] meeting at Marrakesh. In his diary he [Lucas] noted that, ‘This whole affair had a strong odor of Gallipoli and apparently the same amateur was still on the coaches bench’” Zaloga goes on to say that, “Lucas made no secret of his forebodings about the operation, which led some officers to urge him to resign, and others to recommend that [Gen. Sir Harrold] Alexander fubd another commander. Alexander refused, arguing that it would be a mistake to do so with the operation so near.”
SO the argument that the disaster at Anzio was the sole responsiblity of Marc Clark does NOT hold water.
re 42. But that’s not including the 2.5% marginals affect.
The UNS, as we discussed in the previous thread, is a rule of thumb and not a rule of law. 5% is on the absolute margin and would probably see the Tories a few seats short.
But this iteration of UNS projections as though they were some magical law is rubbish.
How are yougov getting enough voters everyday to do the poll? their panel must be huge, or are they using the same voters everyday?
Sorry if this question has been asked before but I was in hospital for 4 weeks and missed the start of the daily poll.
Seems to me that the Budget could well be the clincher one way or the other. To see off the mega budget spin the Conservatives will have to respond in a way which resonates with the Nation. I thought todays response to Browns speech was witty and apt - namely “there’s nothing new here” by Ken Clark and ” Brown is the biggest obstacle to a recovery”. Its that sort of simple direct language which reaches voters. Avoid getting ivnolved in obtuse argumets about Browns phoney “tactor stats” like the plague.It just washes over voters heads.
47 - yet with their track record of accuracy you have to assume that they know what they are doing as far as methodology goes, don’t you?
I’m probably just imagining things, but is Brown looking more and more like the Devil?
Hey jsfl …your arrogance and patronising tone is quite endearing
40 Davey Tibs
Hey…if Labour are so rubbish why are the Tories only on 37%?
Lord Ashcroft.
48- Gabble
Just for balance, Andy Cooke’s calculator gives a Tory majority of 18.
32 - LOL
55 annak
Their panel is huge (400000) but even so, daily polling must be taking their toll.
In particular, their panel must be far more politically aware (both by being on the internet on the first place, and by being polled so often) than the population more generally.
14, 32. Should possibly be adapted to “Orange segment in my mouth/Greatest w**k I ever had.
61. Your ignorance isnt……
The news today isn’t good for the government. Tomorrow we get their MPs up in court.
They have to tell the world how fecked the economy is in a fortnight.
This is as good as it gets, Gabble. Enjoy it.
i work in research.
i question people in the commercial banking/finance sector of specific banks under strict quotas and within a 24 hour timescale. a survey takes around 10-15 minutes to do and we are expected to get daily around 700 surveys as a group per week.
we regular achieve our target and we even have sampling screenouts and ending of quotas. once we get to the nitty gritty numbers we just put the top guys on getting the quotas filled.
my point is that when people say you cant poll this constituency or that its complete nonscence.
everybody knows dentists are greedy they work any hour possible and take you to the cleaners. asking them for 10-15 minutes during 9-5 to do a survey is not exactly the easiest thing in the world. but every month we find 12 dentists to do the survey. we find 20 bursors (schools), we find 24 practice managers (surgeries) we find 15 hairdressors.
hmm maybe we should do political polling. it seems alot easier than doing financially research.
49 One step closer to the longed for defection of Kilroy-Silk.
The ultimate coup,
He brings Rustie Lee with him.
Labour = lol, cheerio (copyright Ave It 2010)
Lib Dems = 15% cuts in support, swingeing!
Tories = Towering sexual predators, all round good guys and fox botherers (bring back the hunt!) - 50 seat majority
58 - I’ve been polled twice in the past three weeks.
If Ashcroft is the answer to everything, then Labour might do better not to advertise the fact - otherwise voters will rightly conclude they should support the party he supports.
It can only be down to Cameron and his wishy washy ways.
Surely if they had someone in charge with an ounce of credibility they would have stuffed this Government by now…
“40.Hey…if Labour are so rubbish why are the Tories only on 37% ?”
Because, sadly as i’d quite like a hung parliament now for f**k the political class reasons, we’re on the cusp of a tide change where the Tories’ 1992 voters come back and part of Labour’s core vote evaporates.
or
The Tories are only slightly less rubbish.
Twitter - SkyNewsBreak
Reports: Police investigate fifth Labour MP over expenses claims
66: Thanks, one other question, what time of the day do they finish polling?
Now 17 Daily YouGov polls average points (changes since 2005 in brackets)
Con 38.3% (+3.0) : Lab 32.4% (+0.1) : LD 17.4% (-4.7) : Other 11.9% (+1.6)
Not much sign of a massive shift in GB voting intention over the last 5 years, just a relatively small shift from LD to Con and Others.
Just as I was saying…. The Daily Telegraph says a FIFTH Labour MP is being investigated by police over expenses.
Nice to see Lord Ashcroft legally paying his taxes is the big scandal Labour are leading out on
55 - given the lack of enthusiasm, to say the least, about the Tories, do you think we might be in for a surprise as far as anti-Tory tactical voting in the marginals goes?
Anecdotally, I know many people - casuals, floaters, Lib Dems, leftish leaners, the Blair market - who are unhappy with the government, yet will still vote to keep the Tories out. That effect doesn’t seem to have diminished.
75…I suspect the latter
54 - Annak - It seems that the sample size is now 1,500 whereas YouGov often do 2,000 people polls. It seems to be a way of stretching their panel.
Re; Gallipoli 1915, in addition to the Armenian genocide, perhaps (and I repeat, perhaps) another unintended consequence was the 1916 Easter Rising in Dublin.
Here are some excerpts from Irish rebel ballad “The Foggy Dew”
“Right proudly high over Dublin town they hung out a flag of war
For it was better to die neath an Irish sky than at Suvla or Sud el Bar”
70 - i think the people in my office could find 500-1000 people and do a consistency poll of poplar and limehouse in 48 hours, we just need a stats guy to work out the sample
we can do the surveys…we get paid…and you get your poll 
A fifth Labour MP is to be investigated over expenses, according to The Daily Telegraph. The paper reports that the Metropolitan police is to launch an investigation into Harry Cohen.
urrrrrrrr that dreadful site UKPR, now thats a site biased towards labour voters, they speak a different language on there, typical labour a load of waffle.
44- “Hung Parliament
Labour edge out the Tories on seats , 34 short of a majority.
LAB 292
CON 286″
In light of the current range of polling, I continue to be amazed at the relaxed attitude of many Tory posters that victory is in the bag, nothing to see here, …
gabblle do you twitter
re 58 well they’ve certainly not asked me since this farrago started. They have asked my opinion on Boots, Ferrero Rocher, Calvin Klein and a whole amount of other rubbish though - twice.
84, couldn’t happen to a nicer chap.
Oh wait, it could. Balls, Kaufman, Byrne would all be better.
67 - I thought they were called Lodges rather than segments
54. I don’t think that’s the way to approach it, Mike.
Of course UNS is unlikely to be spot on, owing to random effects alone.
However, it remains a “fair” - as in unbiased - estimate; something solid to base any further analysis upon.
So, one way of looking at it is that the Tories would have to outperform UNS by over 40 seats to win a bare majority. No party has ever done that, and I seriously doubt whether any party ever could, in the absence of pacts or tactical withdrawals.
Blair beat UNS by 24 seats in 1997, for example…
72 - I haven’t been polled once since this daily poll started and I’ve been a member for about 18 months. Haven’t had any political surveys for about 5 or 6 months.
I say each time that I vote Conservative, does this mean that I’m not ‘interesting’ enough to survey because I’m unlikely to result in a changed poll lead?
Any other yougov members have similar experiences?
74 Yeah like clegg is.
As we all know, Labour budgets are classic examples of the art of obfuscation and they usually unravel within days as people get a chance to read over the small print. The problem is, no one apart of political nerds usually knows about the cons because its buried in the back pages, or only appears in papers that few read, as compared to say the daily freesheets.
The gamble with the budget is clear. Take advantage of free coverage in the immediate aftermath knowing that for many it will be the only bit of politics they actually pay attention to in the run up to the election because they just can’t get away from it even in the free press.
…
What Osborne and the Tory frontbench have to do, along with the back office staff, whilst Darling is speaking, is monitor the social media feeds from the likes of Twitter and those live blogging the event. Back when Brown did his 10p tax trick, it was spotted by me and others whilst Brown was speaking, but the response failed to notice it.
Osborne et al need to be wired up. Blackberrries and other mobile device need to be fully charged and if they believe in the so-called “open source wisdom of crowds” (aka crowd sourcing) they need to be ready to tap into it and destroy the budget before the press begins to wet their inks.
http://dizzythinks.net/2010/03/tories-must-crowd-source-during-budget.html
87, YouGov’s a crock. An 8-9pt lead is likeliest.
78- oldnat
your +/- for L and C are wrong. It’s
Con 38.3% (+6.0) : Lab 32.4% (-2.9) : LD 17.4% (-4.7) : Other 11.9% (+1.6)
80 - Anecdotally = that’s what you said to each other down the Labour Club.
78. eh? your changes are wrong…
ITN news, surprisingly, billing the election as a choice between “the serious one who steer the nation through a crisis” (ish) and “the smily one who makes his kids pancakes for tea”
Chalk up another Coulson cock up there then.
Tichmarsh on the day the budget was announced.
69 - “The news today isn’t good for the government. Tomorrow we get their MPs up in court.”
According to the telegraph another one of their colleagues will soon be joining them.
Harry Cohen expenses
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/mps-expenses/5699352/Labour-MP-Harry-Cohen-quits-after-MPs-expenses-scandal.html
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/mps-expenses/5319017/Harry-Cohen-redecorated-home-sold-it-then-claimed-12000-in-stamp-duty-and-fees-MPs-expenses.html
A Daily Mirror reader I have gets lots of invites to Yougov surveys… I just cannot be ars*** to do them.
80 No, and I am sure the 20 people you know are all unlikely to vote tory.
re 80. I think that we will see anti-Tory tactical voting particularly in LD-CON marginals. In the LAB-CON marginals Labour has benefited enormously from this in recent elections but will it continue on the scale? If not then the blues get a bonus.
78. Humbling numbers. I think those numbers seem to reflect the mood in the country, the Tories partially decontaminated and attracting some Tories for Labour Blair voters back to the fold. Labour bringing the anti-Iraq Labour vote back from the Liberals, who face a nasty malling in the FPP scrap. There’s no 1997-style mood of sweeping change.
98. No. It’s an honest observation and an honest question.
78. The Tories got 33% in 2005 and should be +5 shouldn’t they? Labour should be -3?
56
When my father was serving in Italy, his unit was resting at the side of the road, when a convoy of jeeps etc, pulled up alongside them. A very tall good looking man, surrounded by flunkies walked over, and started shaking them by the hand, and handing out cigarettes and candy. They suddenly realised it was Clarke, he was charming and asked them where they came from, about their families etc. Whatever his faults as General he was certainly a real gentleman in their eyes.
56 - sea shanty irish —— Clarkes criminal mistake was going for Rome and personal glory when he could have cut the Germans off at the pass.
The US record in Europe in 44-45 was mainly a good one (ours a bit patchy) but Clarke was not a shining star.
Churchill was keen on italy because with his WW1 experience he was terrified of getting bogged down in Europe and the casualties that would ensue in fighting across France.
Thats my opinion anyway - and to a certain extent he was right since the average daily attrition rate in the NW Europe Campaign was not much different from that of WW1
70. I used to work for TNS doing face to face. Quotas can be a real bitch…
It was always easy to get females who werent head of the households, with children. But trying to get working men, in their forties with no children ABC1 who do the main shopping, and then get one who will actually answer the door.
Of course the reason for quotas, is the same reason that we have all the dark arts formulas within the political polls, the raw samplings introduce enormous bias, with essentially all market research being led by the views of unemployed women who watch too much daytime tv.
95 - No need for Dizzy to worry. This Budget will be a bleeding mess on the floor within two hours of being delivered.
It’s going to be ripped to pieces. You watch.
94…I suspect if Clegg had access to the sort of resources and press coverage and party infrastructure that Cameron has had then maybe he would have done better…We’ve just been through the most severe recession in living memory and two unpopular wars and the Tories are on 37%!!
Re 78. You numbers are totally wrong. The GB shares in 2005 were C33.2%-L36.2%-LD22.7%
105 - do you think it will continue? Is there any solid polling evidence on the phenomena? Difficult to measure I suppose, so I doubt it.
My gut feeling is that the anti-Tory tactical vote is still strong. An effective Tory campaign could change that I suppose. I don’t know. Like I said earlier, it’s all very exciting…
39 purely a typographical whim - it has a rather late 1990s “my first html” look about it. But of course form must give way to function.
Off topic. Portsmouth sack 80 low-paid staff and cut Peter Storrey’s pay by 40%
Peter Storrey is shameless.
BBC News at Ten has just said that there are rumours of a fifth Labour MP being investigated by the police for expenses.
http://news.sky.com/skynews/Home/Politics/Harry-Cohen-MP-Under-Investigation-By-Police-Over-Expenses-Claims-According-To-The-Telegraph/Article/201003215571466
I hadn’t heard about Illsley. Labour’s spin doctors did a good job on that one!
80. Ash, please keep taking your medication. The Labour government is on -40% on it’s approval ratings. We have seen big anti-Labour tactical voting in the local and Euro elections over 3 years.
Expect anti-Labour tactical voting on the biggest scale in the post-war period, particularly with ‘Stalinist’ Brown leading Labour.
83 - all the soldiers at Gallipoli were volunteers. Conscription was not introduced in Britain until 1916, and not until 1918 in Ireland IIRC (or at all in Australia).
105 - Mike, didn’t the AR marginals show a swing away from the LibDems to the Tories?
106 1997 fallacy eh bobajob, For the millionth time Blair got less votes than Major in 1992.
88 don(the other one)
Lord Ashcroft
smithson, why tolerate these wretched daily tracker polls? Nobody gives them any credibility, and it’s obvious kellner has an agenda. his interview here was a bit of a farce. He promptly buggered off when the questioning got tough.
If none of us have any faith in their weighting formula, why give them credence? Time to jettison this farcical daily tracker - it’s utter bollocks, and we all know it is.
106- bobajob “humbling numbers”?
No, just false.
(see my post at 97 + Rod and Mike’s …)
92. And as the UNS diminishes in magnitude, the chance of a large deviation diminishes with it, I suspect…
Blair got his +24 off the back of a 10.2% swing.
What might Cameron get off the back of a 4.0% swing?
+10 perhaps?
SSI,
The yanks were stuck on the East-coast of Italy. Alexander and the Eigth-Army sought to relieve the pressure on the Gustav line by an attack at Anzio.
The idea was for the US Fifth Army to break-out and link-up with the Eighth. With America lacking much of an history to gloat about Clark went for Rome, allowing the German forces to escape to the Gothic line.
To add salt-into-the-wound Monty led the Allies into Normandy a couple of days later (despite your generals failures at Omaha beech - praise the Bangalore torpedo and Hobart’s Funnies - even though yous-lot were later found to have jerry-built your Mulberry). Pride truly come before a fall, or in Clark’s case - a fool.
117. Yet another Labour MP, the fifth, investigated for expenses abuses.
Can Labour MP’s please stop putting their grubby fingers in the pockets of the abused and beleagured taxpayer!
Eric Illsley: £6000 phantom council tax
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/mps-expenses/5581934/MPs-expenses-MPs-made-inflated-council-tax-claims.html
118.”I hadn’t heard about Illsley. Labour’s spin doctors did a good job on that one!2
wibbler, I was amazed to discover that Skynews headline talking of a fifth Labour MP, how was the fourth one missed while he had wall to wall Lord Ashcroft on our news screens over the last week?
124 - It’s not a tracker. It’s a bona fide poll.
Newsnight education special tonight, starting now.
124 - it’s not a tracker poll.
And you seem to be very sure about flaws in their weighting. Are you an expert in research methodology and statistical methods? Why don’t you apply for a job with YouGov?
The daily tracker is a joke.
Sorry guys - I transposed the Con/Lab vote share for 2005. So easy to confuse these parties!
I’m getting really sick of this s##t, fortunately the BBC (for once) told him to get lost.
“Downing Street for Gordon Brown to appear on the BBC’s Match of the Day 2 show was turned down because it was too close to the election, it emerged today.”
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1256863/BBC-turns-Gordon-Browns-request-appear-Match-Day-2.html
numbertwelve Thatchers were the most hilarious simply because she simply couldn’t take her Prime Minister/hectoring hat off in any of them… I distinctly remember some kid’s programme where a young girl asked her in a phone-in what would happen if the country was nuked. I remember her, in the face of repeated questioning saying something like “I will be in a bunker in London, dear, working out how our country should respond” in the most patronising way imaginable. It was hilarious.
We may be remembering different programmes, but the incident which I remember is that a girl asked
“In the event of a nuclear war, where will you be?”
to which Mrs Thatcher started giving an adult answer explaining the theory of nuclear deterrence and mutually assured destruction - i.e. explaining why it was a good thing to have nuclear weapons, instead of actually answering the question. She repeated the answer once, and the question had to be asked a third time before she actually got to the point that the child was asking about.
The Screaming Eagles A woman in Georgia claims she is the oldest living person in the world - clocking in at 130 years old.
Documents found by the Rustavi 2 TV station in Georgia claim Antisa Khvichava was born on July 8 1880.
Antisa was filmed by the station playing backgammon and drinking vodka.
http://www.thisislondon.co.uk/standard/article-23813824-130-years-old-woman-claims-to-be-oldest-living-person-in-the-world.do
Why oh why do we keep getting so many such utterly nonsensical reports from the mainstream media about fake supercentenarians? The “granddaughter” was clearly not even remotely old enough. Either the editors have no common sense, or they are just out to sell copies regardless of any concern for accuracy.
Another David …that French lady who used to chill with van Gough.
Do you mean van Gogh? “Chill with”? She thought he was smelly and ugly.
John Buckingham was a Labour seat in the 80s… In the past it was a Labour seat, held by Robert Maxwell,
It included Milton Keynes then.
By the way, there are lots of Johns here. Are you a new arrival? If so, I suggest you add an initial or surname otherwise we will get confused.
Just been thinking about Cameron’s predecessors as party leader to see if anyone would’ve done any better than he is doing…it’s a sobering thought
Let’s talk about Lord Ashcroft.
Let’s compare his expenses claims to those about to go up before the magistrates.
Telegraph leading on another Labour MP facing a police probe
Express leading on extra death taxes
Vote Labour.
re 92 Rod hang on. Andy C only on the last thread was telling us that Labour had a 144 seat advantage over UNS in 2005.
So one of you is mistaken.
“Labour edges ahead on education, BBC poll suggests”
Best education policies:
LAB 27%
CON 25%
LIB 10%
DK 26%
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/programmes/newsnight/8558537.stm
Ho ho ho,
“Labour MP Harry Cohen being investigated over expenses, BBC UNDERSTANDS”
What you mean is “BBC bod read it on the Telegraph website…”
127 — Everyone was stuck in Italy
Generals did not fail at Omaha … US soldiers performed heroically. Caen was a British objective on D-Day. We did not take it ’til weeks later and struggled at every turn to make progress.
That’s not because of lack of effort - our casualties were huge. You may be surprised to know that war is sometimes a bit tricky with the enemy being cursedly difficult chaps.
140..what utter rubbish …the only respondents who I have any respect for at all in that poll is the 26% who were honest enough to disclose they didn’t know…95% of voters have NO IDEA what are the Education policies of the parties
Gabble please stop using html tags, you are very annoying!
138 - Ashcroft was far better. All within the rules, of course, but his £176 million makes a few thousand look piffling.
140 Gabble
Unusual to see a poll that actually restricted the polling to that part of the UK whose education policy is decided at Westminster.
120, 83 - true, but beside the point. As the Irish separtist/republican argument was that nationalist Irish had been duped (by John Redmond & perfidious Albion) into enlisting, under false pretenses.
Yet more from “the Foggy Dew” lyrics:
England bade our wild geese go that small nations might be free
Now their lonely graves are by Suvla’s waves on the fringe of the great North sea”
Paxman isn’t keen on Balls is he?
Paxo gives Balls detention for lying and not doing his homework.
140 - Also,
“Seventy per cent of those questioned said Labour had failed to deliver, up from 67% last year.”
Pretty speculator success there then on the old “edukation, edukation, edukation” (as most applications probably Tesco spell it, if the comments of the top bods are anything to go by).
140 Gabble
“Labour takes a commanding lead on bent MPs that should be jailed, Telegraph reports”
Guardian says “See no Labour evil, Hear no Labour evil…”
All downhill from here for Labour. Brown has had enough chances to escape with a relatively light defeat. Within a week of the budget, we will see a 15% Conservative lead in at least one poll. (Excluding Angus Reid)
On topic, I’m getting just a little tired of these daily polls.
Not PB.com’s reporting of them, of course. Just the fact that they seem too much polling, and I never thought I’d think that.
I’d be happier with them if I were a Labour man though. Five points? Oooh. Dave will probably still do it with that, plus a marginals boost…but crikey, it’ll be close.
Off topic, if I may - wasn’t PMQs jolly good fun today? I’ve only just watched it, but Dave’s flash of anger, Gordon’s seething Ashcroft Obsession (I reckon the good Lord could get a restraining order just on the basis of today’s session), super stuff. More of the same place.
140. That doesn’t add up to 100% - I blame Labour’s education policies.
147 - Okay, that sounds like a tabloids dream headline.
as most applications probably Tesco spell it -> as most applications to Tesco probably spell it
Who would you rather have as Education Secretary, Ed Balls or Michael Gove?
Surely it’s a no-brainer?!
Beat Balls
http://www.beatballs.co.uk/main/
127
Woah,
sorry Fluffy but whilst I may not agree entirely with SSI over Anzio and Gallipoli that has to be one of the most partial readings of the normandy landings I have ever seen.
Everyone knew from the very start that the Americans had been given probably the toughest challenge with Omaha and Utah beaches particularly given the cliffs that dominated Omaha. The idea that Monty - one of the most overrated generals in WW2 - ‘led the Allies into Normandy” is just rubbish. There were a great many failings large and small by allied generals in WW2 and Monty in front of Caen was by no means an example of great generalship.
124 Yougov with these daily polls are enraging any informed supporters they may once have had while improving their standing in the eyes of the wider public by exactly zero.
Did someone say they were advising the tories?
Seth O L: Who was it had the advertising slogan: The answer’s Yes; now what’s the question?
140-145- Not politically weighted poll, of course.
Balls has googly eyes
147. I was going to make a horrific joke about that.
140 demographically representative.. 865 people.. ignore…
guidofawkes
Laws wins it on hairstyle. #Newsnight
162 - Please do.
Labour is getting absolutely hammered on NN by the teacher
Rod Crosby ,if you are about, from your personal perspective what would your ideal election result (and aftermath) be?
(This is not necessarily the same as what you think is likely to happen of course, but it might)
So Dave (substantial) Cameron likes, ‘Larkrise to Candleford’ does he. I get sent up the pub, my impression of the grizzled stonemason, ‘What ye gotta understand woman is that these are the ‘ands of a craftsman’ doesn’t go down to well. That Dorcas woman Jeeeeesus smug cow you could strangle her with piano wire.
whoooops ‘ere
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/politics/article7057440.ece
165. The last time Paxman saw Balls that unsightly, he wrote a letter to Marks and Spencer.
159 AnneJGP
Was it YouGov?
On the subject of Anzio,the British hatred of Clark was deep and abiding. My grandfather, who served there, could barely bring himself to say a civil word about the general 60 years later.
Serious question, why is it that all these issue based polls that the BBC seem to get done for Daily Politics and Newsnight are always very small samples and never politically weighted?
156 - Lawsy!!!
They fought the Laws, and the Laws won!!!
127, FT - there is much true to what you say. BUT how does what you (and changing the subject) say make Clark solely responsible for Anzio?
109, Coldstone - Note that “Willie and Joe” cartoonist famously had little to no use for brass hats in general, and almost all generals in particular. However, he made an exception for at least four generals: Ike, Marc Clark, Lucas Truscott and Theodore Roosevelt, Jr. Why? Because despite their flaws, they were reknowned (and rare) for having genunine respect for enlisted men, and a true appeciation not just for their service and sacrifices, but their indespensible role in winning the war.
170 - ***Applause***
Why do Newsnight waste their time on debates about Education…as long are there are parents out there who have no interest whatsoever in what their children do at school, neither academically or in respect of their behaviour then there is no point trying to raise standards globally
I can’t believe the abuse being thrown at a pollster with the expertise, reputation, respect, and track record of accuracy that YouGov have just because their polls are recently less favourable to the Tories than some others.
Very unedifying from Tory supporters.
159 If you think there are too many polls now, just wait… there are 10 pollsters, in the election campaign itself YouGov are going to go up to daily from the current 5 per week, if the others are no more than weekly there will be 2 or three every day (probably more on Saturday night I would guess).
Ed Balls is dire, its obvious this guy has never had to work in an environment in government or as a PPC where he has had to work at his people skills.
177 - indeed. But that’s not the fault of their children.
Ed Balls:
“Parents can set up their own schools under this government…”
Then he goes and says, basically they can’t, and he doesn’t support the idea.
Plonker
http://www.beatballs.co.uk/main/
Ash, how does the world look from atop your high horse?
Is Gove dumping the national curriculum?
177 indeed …it is the downward spiral that we need to find a way out of…regretfully I am not sure that anyone knows the solution
186.
If Gove was dumping the national curriculum, I’d personally go and shake him by the hand.
178
You will find many of those attacking Yougov are not Tory supporters. And the attacks are not because they are ‘less favourable’ to the tories but because they have introduced a new and dubious weighting mechanism which takes large vote differences and turns them into small differences. And they won’t explain how and why they do this ina manner which satisfies the neutral observers who want to make money on the information derived from the polls - which is, after all, what this site is about.
178. YouGov have been a very good pollster over the past few years, however they have made some strange changes recently that have adjusted the Labour and Tory figures up to 25% at times (I believe). I think when that kind of thing happens people are right to be more cautious.
ladpolitics
Ed Balls 16/1 to be next Labour Leader with Ladbrokes. http://bit.ly/5xjG1g
I think this debate wold be much better if Paxman was somewhere else. He is so keen to humiliate the MPs that he is hampering the (potential) discussion.
Aaaarggghhh it makes my blood boil when these types spout on about why kids from deprived areas do badly at school and that we should apend more to improve those areas. No, no, no, poor kids are NOT any less intelligent than kids from any other areas…they struggle because their parents have no interest in their educational wellbeing.
Indeed their parents have no interest in ANYTHING…that is why they are in poverty in the first place
193 - he fought the Laws, and the Laws won!
Go Lawsy! Go Lawsy!
193 - dreadful television.
192 - Labour Party death wish 16/1?
141. You and Andy both I’m afraid, or at least Andy presented the data in a vague manner which encouraged you to draw a wrong conclusion…
157, AR - I diplomatically ignored what FT said re: Omaha beach. Thanks for picking up the slack!
Believe that when it comes to military mistakes, the blame game is almost always MUCH too simplistic, a way too easy way of picking your favorite scapegoat.
For example, Dieppe was a tragedy, esp. for the Canadian army. And it’s childsplay to heap coals upon (to pick just one) Mountbatten’s head.
BUT in reality, who knew what to expect? Esp. since just about everyone overestimated the impact of naval gunnery and underestimated the efficacy of beach defenses AND the skill of German defenders.
Lady luck plays a huge role in war AND politics! As someone noted in previous thred, IF things had gone just a wee bit better at the start of Gallipoli campaign (or someone had put arsenic in Kemal’s kabab) then the course of history would have been different.
By same token, IF Kim il Sung had been a bit more on the ball, then Macarthur’s military reputation would have been destroyed on the beaches of Inchon. Instead of on the banks of the Yalu and Chosen Resevoir.
193 - Agreed
190 / 191 - I repeat what I said earlier.
YouGov’s track record suggests that they know what they are doing on methodology.
194….and which is a very good reason for having less parental involvement in schools, not more!
I am sorry to say that even though this YouGov shows the Tory figure heading north again, it is simply nonsense in the absence of proper weighting.
Paxo losing control on Newsnight but both Gove and Laws making a good fist of their positions and Balls out of his depth. If this was to be the next Chancellor, lord help us. His only plys point is that he makes Brown look like a political titan.
Surely Mr and Mrs Balls must be the two most overpromotoed politicians in recent decades?
Gove making an idiot of himself.
Get ready for the bore-athons…..
“The news that Gordon Brown wants every possible moment to prepare for the TV debates is, oddly enough, good news for the Conservatives. I suspect it means that Brown will turn up with a litany of statistics, age-old quotes from David Cameron and some prepared attack lines. If Brown is determined to shoe-horn these in, he won’t be able to adjust to the debate as it unfolds.”
http://www.spectator.co.uk/coffeehouse/5832783/brown-risks-being-overprepared-for-the-debates.thtml
Tractor production up under Labour, tractor production always down under the evil Tories….
Ohhh, so Labour are going to impose the death tax after all - after all that noise and denial:
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1257066/Millions-face-10-death-tax-Middle-class-hit-hardest-Labour-plan-fund-elderly-care.html
Interesting viewpoint on the debates
Brown risks being over-prepared for the debates
PMQ’s today bolstered my view that David Cameron will outperform Gordon Brown in the three TV debates. Cameron is simply more confident about thinking on his feet than Brown.
When Ronnie Campbell and chums started suggesting that the generals who had criticised Brown’s record on defence were doing so because they were Tories, Cameron changed tack and demanded that the Prime Minister disassociate himself from the heckles of his colleagues.
He was happy to move away from his planned six questions and go with something else. By contrast, Brown is much more determined to stick to his pre-prepared lines.
http://www.spectator.co.uk/coffeehouse/5832783/brown-risks-being-overprepared-for-the-debates.thtml
He was dubbed: “Tony Blair’s favourite general.”
He’s credited with persuading Blair to send troops into Kosovo, Iraq and Afghanistan and persuading him not to invade Zimbabwe.
Zimbabwe? Phew!
Lord Guthrie is also a former SAS trooper and is reputed to have “slit more throats than anyone else in Whitehall”.
But now the former Chief of the Defence Staff is sticking the knife into Gordon Brown and Labour MPs.
After a backbench chorus of Labour MPs led by backbenchers Ronnie Campbell and Ken Purchase shouted “Tories” when David Cameron challenged Gordon Brown on the attacks on Brown after his Chilcot appearance by Guthrie and Lord Boyce, Blair’s favourite general hit back.
“I think that’s rather cheap,” he told my Sky News colleague, Defence Correspondent Geoff Meade. “I actually think it indicates too that they have a tremendous lack of knowledge about what generals are really like,”
And then he went on to step up his criticism of Brown, declaring that he should have made more money available for defence “when times were good” instead of treating the MoD “unsympathetically”.
http://blogs.news.sky.com/boultonandco/Post:febd867d-ca98-4606-b9bf-78badf7724ee
I’m rather enjoying the education shindig, but I’m mildly pissed. Revulsion for Balls is the order of the day. And Gove is funny.
What is wrong with Gove?
“Breaking Balls with Paxman,
he fought the Laws and the Laws won.
He fought the Laws and the Laws won.”
“4.Don’t like the new format for poll results”
I like the new format for the polls. Very clear at first glance, especially as they coming in thick and fast. Also has a swing indicator I find useful to see if different companies are reporting much the same or different with their alternate percentages. Thank you
Also I’m enjoying how PB.com analyses polls. Those doing all kinds of surveys have probably had it easy for too long, people taking it at face value. Can’t blame media too much as they need to make a sale in order to pay their mortgage so will push anything that catches the eye. But what PB.com has come to prove is that we, the punters, don’t have to accept flawed rubbish. Doubting polls has always been a flavour of pb.com, but now, like a sea change, there’s a developing swell exposing tangibles to justify the doubts, which itself begets even sharper probing – like the apes in 2001 taking the next step up. And both this willingness to and greater knowledge how to question is probably just as relevant outside of political polls, like the polling of cats on which cat food they prefer, or student nurses analysing study’s into bed rails.
201. You may be convinced by that. I’m not, particularly.
199, meself - Sorry, top of that post is in response to 160, Richard Tyndall - problem is, I’m letting work distract me from PB!
210. He sounds sensible unlike Balls.
210 He is beset with Balls army of Straw Men
I expect Gove to best them all and Balls to look even more ridiculous than he already does in the debate
What is wrong with Balls??
Why is he our Education Secretary??
How, for the love of god, has he reached a position of power??
He probably couldn’t do up his shoelaces without Yvette’s help.
210
99% tim. stick to the 1%
I thought Gove was the new Yory hope? It’s not often someone makes Balls look like he knows what he’s talking about. Laws is the star though.
Gove is far more on top of his brief than Balls but he is interrupting a bit too much. He should leave the rudeness to Balls.
The Herod line was a classic though.
Laws is coming off best in this by a mile
170. My ideal result would probably be
Con 200
Lab 200
LD 200
Oths 50
I’ve always said that I expect Lab and Con to be in the range 250-300, which most likely where we are now. Who finishes in front is anyone’s guess, although I have an old, small bet with someone here that it will be Labour - just!
219 - Wow Roger doesn’t rate Tory shocker.
In other news, the Pope admits to Catholic Tendencies
Tim, Roger and Gabble all expressing their one mind at the same time. Gove must be doing okay then.
Gove is hilarious. Everything about him screams “unelectable”. The Tories really have a front bench problem don’t they?
221. Laws is a smart chap that should have defected when Osborne offered him the chance.
Laws is very competent - but he seems to have made a major gaffe. He seems to have suggested that the Lib Dems will ringfencing the NHS, education, as well as international development budgets.
Not sure I believe that!
Front pages..
Cleggy story in the Indi might be interesting
http://news.sky.com/skynews/Home/UK-News/Newspaper-Front-Pages-Thursday-March-11-2010/Media-Gallery/201003215571428?lpos=UK_News_Left_Promo_Region_0&lid=GALLERY_15571428_Newspaper_Front_Pages_Thursday_March_11_2010
221 - Laws for leader. Shame it’ll never happen
226 - laws is far too smart for that.
210 tim
Lord Ashcroft?
Balls: dreadful.
Gove: suprisingly similar.
Laws: winning.
228 - not realy news, Clegg said that weeks ago.
229. Spending a career as a big fish in a small backwater isn’t particularly smart. No offence meant, of course.
227 Absolutely, if this was not a ‘ringfenced’ education programme, Paxman would have been all over him after Gove waded in.
Rookie error
225 - ‘Gove is hilarious. Everything about him screams “unelectable”.’
Oi, don’t get carried away there. Even tim, who has traduced more tories than you’ve had hot dinners, rates Govey boy.
227 - Where are all the those “savage” cuts going to come from then? Or have the Lib Dem’s abandoned that now?
The death tax headline is a killer for Labour.
Shame it’s on the front page of the Express…
233 - it’s called standing by your principles Andrew. I realise tha tmight be a strange concept for you
231. *surprisingly
Re: Mike’s new format for posting poll results, might be a good idea to also include a third column, showing the change from the previous numbers. Realize that folks can do this in their heads but still think it would be useful.
I’ve decided to start personally love bombing David Laws.
237 - and the Mail.
235 - Gove the political operator, or Gove the face of Tory policy?
I see the Daily Rant and Express have gone with the Death Tax….oh dear
238. If I had principles, I wouldn’t be a Tory.
237 It’s on the Mail front page too
233 - besides, he’s probably done Osbo a favour. He realy doesn’t need Laws showing him up on top of Clarke.
david laws is my favorite lib dem.
“Dave then made a mistake as he sang out: “The reason the defence budget fell in the Nineties is that under the Conservatives we won the Cold War!” The chamber did not laugh so much as crow at this ridiculous statement of Simple Simon history (or even Simply Wrong Simon history).”
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/politics/parliamentary_sketch/article7057237.ece
230 - I think I’d prefer Daves travel paid for by Lord Ashcroft rather than the pro apartheid sanctions busters he favoured while fighting the cold war.
241 TSE
Did you get my Gilbert & Sullivan last night. I posted a long extract of the HMS Pinafore libretto and it disappeared into the ether?
I am beginning to worry that Mike S has a low brow filter on pb.com.
242,246
Times or Indie would have been better - at least they have the pretence of being non-partisan (though the latter of course is a lefty)….
That headline on the Daily Rant and the Express is just preaching to the converted.
250 - No I didn’t see it.
The Vorderman appointment is good value for weeks to come.
248 - naturally you miss of the bit at the end where it says Brown ultimately lost the exchange for being a speak your weight machine that thinks everyone who steps on weighs Ashcroft.
210 ‘What is wrong with Gove?’
Every time he starts answering a question, Balls interrupts him, and Paxman does nothing. I’d have punched Fat Eddie between his googly eyes by now. No wonder Education is in such a mess with Mr Yvette Cooper in charge.
Gove came out of that quite badly by his standards.
Balls, of course, utterly atrocious.
Laws very good on first sight but his massive spending commitment gaffe might come back to haunt him.
249 ‘while fighting the cold war.’
tim, you’re just bitter that you were on the losing side comrade.
249 tim
Well Ronnie and Maggie did at least win the Cold War.
I know that from personal experience as I was there dancing in the streets.
It is just a pity that Blair and Brown wasted the ‘peace dividend’.
tim, day 275, still no reason to vote labour. More telling than all the posts he makes attempting to slag off Dave.
tim, five reasons to vote labour was obviously a mountain to climb, how about three?
Speaking of polls, one thing I’ve NOT heard much about, is UK parties (let alone candidates) running their own polls. Wheras is US it’s a common as a bad cup of tea!
One of the most creative is on recently conducted by Huff/MoveOn sweetheart Rep. Adam Grayson (D-FL) in which he touts leading, not just for renomination to Congress as a Democrat, but also the “fact” that he’s leading for the GOP nomination!
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/03/04/grayson-leading-in-republ_n_486090.html
Now as an objective survey of voter opinion, this is clearly crappola. BUT as PR and for fundraising, it’s brilliant.
Would you all like to hear something funny?
My wife, in front of several friends earlier on this evening said the following.
“I found something smelly and disgusting in my husbands boxer shorts this morning. My husband”
254 Didn’t she famously get a Third? And would therefore be unacceptable to Michael Gove as a teacher?
Lessons for the Prime Ministerial debates: interrupt less, and only when your point is VERY easy to communicate.
Interruptions come across really really badly.
252 TSE
It was the denouement when Buttercup admits to mixing the babies up when she was nursemaid.
Here is a very much shorter version of what I posted last night:
Buttercup.
Oh, bitter is my cup!
However could I do it?
I mixed those children up,
And not a creature knew it!
Chorus.
However could you do it?
Some day, no doubt, you’ll rue it,
Although no creature knew it,
So many years ago.
262 - one for the Hurd, a Douglas
262 - Yes.
Not quite thought through that one, even before the QT appearance.
264 - I like that. What the world needs is less Ed Balls and more Gilbert and Sullivan.
263 Lessons for the Prime Ministerial debates: Have a good chairman who can control the debate, and fairly.
Reminder: the first of the expenses troughers are in the City of Westminster magistrates’ court tomorrow.
Public allowed in but I doubt there will be much room…
“256.Gove came out of that quite badly by his standards. Balls, of course, utterly atrocious.”
The two are connected though. Balls is good at harrying.
110, Trevors Den - sorry, just saw your post.
“Churchill was keen on italy because with his WW1 experience he was terrified of getting bogged down in Europe and the casualties that would ensue in fighting across France.
Thats my opinion anyway - and to a certain extent he was right since the average daily attrition rate in the NW Europe Campaign was not much different from that of WW1″
Believe the above is true, as far as it goes. BUT the notion that Italy was the “soft underbelly” (after the Allied failure to take advantage of the ouster of Mussolini) was disasterous. Compared to NW Europe, Italy was a meat grinder for the Allies.
As for NWE attrition, there were a LOT fewer days involved from D-Day to VE Day. Plus the fact that a lot of Allied casulties in 1944-45 could have been avoided IF commanders had avoided the blunders of Market Garden and the Bulge.
267 - less Balls, or fewer?
http://www.spectator.co.uk/coffeehouse/5832783/brown-risks-being-overprepared-for-the-debates.thtml
Brown worries that Cameron and Clegg have more time to practice for the debates than he does. I would not like to be helping him.
272 - Less Balls.
An excellent Newsnight debate. Balls, Gove and Laws each put over the right combination of policy and politics and set out their stalls well. The five person panel was also a good idea - a mirror image QT. I hope the Leader debates have a similar format. The only problem was Paxo who insisted on shouting down the panel members, especially when they started to develop an argument. Perhaps in future a radio presenter such as Eddie Mair would provide the right level of moderation?
222 Thanks Rod! I guessed as much. It wouldn’t be a bad result, actually!
This just in from politico.com
“Harry Reid: Reform filibuster next year”
Talk about yer day late and dollar short! Methinks that Harry Reid is suffering from Stockholm syndrom!!!
http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0310/34212.html
270 Balls never stops sniping, thus denying his opponent any opportunity to answer. The problem with this method is he also ends up looking like a loathsome tw*t, with the demeanour of an angry toddler overdosing on tartrazine.
She got a third from Selwyn College, Cambridge though, having got rather good grades prior to that.
I’d say she would make a better maths teacher than the average person with a C at GCSE and a 2:2 from a new university (or Oxford).
275 Yes, Eddie Mair would be ideal! Knowledgeable, competent and comparatively lacking in ego.
241/261 TSE - would that be with your boxer shorts?
I’m not keen on all this discussion of degree classes. It’s all about to become rather too close to home.
270 - I know wht Gordy likes Ed Balls. He’s the only Labour minister who makes the skin crawl more than Peter Mandelson and his good self.
Edit - I forgot Phil Woolas.
278 That is true and if ZNL had any other option Balls would be rubbish - but in a situation where all you’ve got to work with is spoiler tactics then Herman, Whelan etc are your goblins.
275 - Simon Mayo would be good too.
281 - More than likely, yes.
278. “The problem with this method is he also ends up looking like a loathsome tw*t, with the demeanour of an angry toddler overdosing on tartrazine.”
A fair description of Comrade Blinky.
Vorderman was a mistake for the Tories. Same with Allsopp.
This political obsession with celebrity is just a nightmare.
Not limited to Tories, by any means. We have Ed Balls and the anti-bullying campaign fronted by the bully from N-Dubz? Alan Sugar too, though he has been pretty quiet of late.
Tony Blair and the whole Cool Britannia thing is mainly to blame.
279 David Roe
In my time it was impossible to get a 2:2 from Oxford.
Journalists should research their facts.
Bluddy Tab!
279 - that was pretty low, putting them in the same bracket. If I was a new University I’d be very hacked off
I take it we’ve all got the scene from Blackadder Goes Forth involving, Oxford Uni being a complete dump in our heads?
*** Betting Post ***Paddy Power are offering some generous odds on their new Budget Special market. This is what I’ve gone for (in every case, I’m betting no change):
VAT 16.5% to 17.5% 8/15
Corporation tax unchanged 8/11
Top rate of income tax 46p to 50p 4/5
Inheritance tax Increase in Threshold: 0-£10K 6/1
Unfortunately they won’t let me put much on, but IMO these are goodies.
Daily Mail - My admiration for Margaret Thatcher, by Lib Dem leader Nick Clegg
“Liberal Democrat leader Nick Clegg last night declared his admiration for Margaret Thatcher.
In an apparent bid to woo old school Tory voters he said his party’s economic policies were more in tune with Lady Thatcher’s than those of David Cameron.
Mr Clegg told the Spectatorm-Magazine he was now grown up enough to see that Lady Thatcher had been right about many policies.”
Talk about transparent political opportunism! After years of slagging off Thatcher, suddenly, both Brown and Clegg won’t to be Thatchers kids too! This change of strategy makes me wonder what the Libdems own polling and canvassing in those seats are telling them? And how is this going to play to the idea that the Libdems will hope to carry on picking up the anti Tory vote while hoovering up the Thatcherite voters as well. Its the lack of any coherence or previous history which again will see this come unstuck for Clegg.
275.
Gavin Esler would’ve been excellent.
293 - Christina, if you go on to read the rest of the article, you’ll see that the aspect of Lady T that he is praising is that she took on a vested interest (the Unions) that had a stranglehold on society and that we now need to do the same thing (the banks).
292 Richard Nabavi
That 6/1 on no increase in the inheritance tax threshold seems like free money! Thanks!!!
This cartoon amused me:
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/comment/cartoon/?cartoon=7412095&cc=7342899
291. I’ve taken it to heart since Oxford decided that they didn’t want my brilliance gracing their dreaming spires.
I missed something - was Cameron on a TV show earlier?
288 - The Tories have got both Vorderman and Goldie Hawn working on their schools policy.
298 - Should have applied to Cambridge.
289 - Apologies. If I were to research every time I wanted to post a joke I’d not get much work done
291 - Priceless comedy gold.
Speaking of comedy gold, has anyone been watching the Sky News paper review? Kelvin just said: ‘We’ll be able to get rid of this one-eyed Scotsman’. The presenter said: ‘Why do you always have to cross the line?’
‘I’ve not. He’s got one eye and he’s Scottish.
‘At least I’ve not called him an idiot’
292 - Agree with every one of those, Richard. It’s a classic error in “specials” compiling not to go short enough the jolly…
302 - Talking about Kelvin…
I love the person with the sense of humour at Question Time, who on the International Womens Day Special QT, who has invited Kelvin to join the panel tomorrow.
300, Labour have Ed Balls,
Still no reasons to vote Labour?
295.Tabman, I linked to the Daily Mail article because its readership is a hell of a lot larger than that of the Spectator. And its that article which will be read by many more voters. I hope that the Libdems in some of those seats are not planning to continue the old vote for X or the Tory gets in, its going to look a bit silly now.
292 - AWESOME spot.
I’m on them all.
0-10K increase in IHT threshold already down to 3/1
304.’International Womens Day Special QT’
Oh gawd, you are joking, really?
The US government recorded a budget deficit of $221bn (£147.6bn) in February - the largest monthly deficit in its history.
the total deficit since the beginning of the fiscal year in October now stands at $651.6bn, the figures from the US treasury show.
That puts it on track to beat last year’s record annual budget deficit of $1.4tn.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/8561319.stm
Seems Obama is another subscriber to Gordonomics…
308 wibbler - Still a bargain IMO. Personally I’d back it down to 1/2.
311 Richard Nabavi
Agreed - fortunately, I got on at 6/1
292 - Thanks Richard.
Is it one of Mikes markets, he’s probably unaware of the IHT debate.
I’m glad I got on the 6s.
I’ll buy you a pint at a PBC meetup for this one
305 Balls is a plague on everyone’s house. Gove and Laws both had perfectly valid and interesting points to make, but with Fat Eddie chipping in to interrupt at every opportunity, sensible debate was impossible.
He’s one of the key reasons why people are turned off politics in this country.
Someone yesterday asked what the probability of different number of Conservative seats was.
I have prepared a graph of the probability density function of Conservative seats that you will find interesting at:
http://www.ecoturs.org/electionpdf.bmp
This is based on the probability implicit in the Betfair overall majority and most seats markets, translated into swing assumptions, using a normal distribution for the swing, and translated back into seats.
Yes I have used an Andy Cooke type approach to the swing but the result is not very sensitive to the this methodology, as I have translated the seats from Betfair into swing and back again.
Hopefully the graph is pretty self-explanatory. The yellow area is a hung parliament.
309 - No I’m not, it’s an all women audience.
Richard Nabavi. I’m on them all too!
Got all the prices except top rate of Income Tax - now cut to 4/7.
Only allowed £6.34 on the Inheritace Tax at 6/1. Maximum stake allowed was £68.88 at 8/15 on VAT no change.
Have others had similar stakes matched?
Anyway. Looks a great spot! Assuming they all deliver. If not, - we know where you post!!
Richard Nabivi:
VAT 16.5% to 17.5% 8/15
I take it you have never filled in a VAT return….
314 - I’d buy him a pint too if Paddys would let me win the cost of one
Surely there is no serious chance of an increase in the IHT threshold.
I would have thought realistic odds would be about 1/5.
317.Eagles, will it be like a mumsnet fest? Shudders.
318 stjohn - Don’t worry, I offer a full money-back guarantee. If they don’t come in, I’ll refund your subscription to my tipping service.
310- America won’t tolerate this outrageous budgetary indiscipline much longer, but not to worry… the Democrats have their finger on the pulse of the average American and will soon be instituting huge tax increases to assuage their concerns.
…
In Obamacare news, there seems to be a subtle but apparent shift today against healthcare reform in the House:
http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2010/03/10/senate-health-care-dead-arrival-say-pro-life-house-democrats/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%253A+foxnews%252Fpolitics+%2528Text+-+Politics%2529
The recent House vote shifting seems to be against Obamacare, not for it, and the House Dems are still stuck trying to come up with some heretofore unexplained mechanism to pass the Senate bill with an ironclad guarantee that it will be amended to the House’s specifications afterward:
http://campaignspot.nationalreview.com/post/?q=NTk2ZWI0OTEwNGJmYTcwM2VlOWU0N2VjZGViOGUzYzk=
256
‘Laws very good on first sight but his massive spending commitment gaffe might come back to haunt him.’
But surely that’s the point,Law can say anything he wants because he’s never going to have the opportunity implement his policy,he knows that,the electorate know that so basically he’s politely ignored.
PMQs: Cameron Blows Up What’s Left of the Consensus on Defence
http://blogs.wsj.com/iainmartin/2010/03/11/pmqs-cameron-blows-up-whats-left-of-the-consensus-on-defence/
Different verdict from Ann Treneman though
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/politics/parliamentary_sketch/article7057237.ece
291 - the incomparable Derek Robinson wrote the following:
“Gremlins,” [Barton] said, “bloody Cambridge-educated Gremlins, vicious little b*ggers, isn’t that right Skull?” He helped himself to Bacon.
“Buggery is not yet part of the curriculum at Cambridge,” Skull remarked, “though I believe its appeal is secon only to lagiarism at Oxford.”
“Is that true, what you saif about Oxford?” Bletchley asked.
“Probably not. I expect they were boasting.” Skull said. “They have so little to boast about, poor creatures.”
And no real verdict but much mirth by Simon Hoggart
http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2010/mar/10/pmqs-cameron-brown-sketch
323. Richard. LOL!
I’ve just managed another £6.34 at 3/1 on “No Inheritance Tax threshold rise”.
Talking of tipping services. The “STJOHN”, (St.John’s, The Jumps, Occasional Horseracing Nod), deluxe tipping service, will be providing an “extra-ordinary” daily service to PBers during the forthcoming Cheltenham Festival.
You have been warned!
My personal view FWIW, is that on the night Labour will be a no show. For when Tories say they intend to vote, they always do. When Labour voters say they will, many will, but a significant minority will not.
Add to this, Labour activist being forever more thin on the ground, and generally getting sick of making excuses. Marginals are where it is really at, and they are all mainly ex Conservative seats. The Lib/Dems are going nowhere much, when not being seen as just an extra unneeded confusion, or an indulgence few can now afford.
In the long run and where it really matter who wins will make no difference whatsoever. However in the short term there may be a small but significant difference in priorities. All major parties have many good reasons to desperately want to win. However these are countered by as many if not more reasons why they very much need to lose. But why should we give a damn about what is good for political parties, they most self-apparently have NEVER given a monkeys about us as a whole?
My advice is to vote for the party you personally believe is going to act in your own best interests. If you work in a government non job, have no worthwhile of transferable skills, or are effectively unemployable, please be so kind as to vote for The Labour Party.
If however you work for the private sector, and wish to have a chance of carrying on doing so, then please be so kind as to vote for the Conservative Party.
A big mistake would be to seriously believe that voting for any reason other then self-interest is now or ever has been in the past a sensible or usefully constructive thing to do.
What is more, if you do vote for anything other then your own personal self-interest, please be so very kind as to not bother to complain about the result. For you only have yourself to blame.
Which basically means this in practice.
If on balance you like what has happened during the last 13 years, vote Labour. If on balance you do not like what has happened during the last 13 years, vote Conservative. Then wait ( not that you will have any choice in the matter ) until the next election ( always assuming there actually will be another election ) then if you did not like what you got, then vote for the other lot.
They will soon get the massage, and may even with a bit of luck stop taking the utter piss 100% of the time. We can only hope.
330 - thanks stjohn, I’ll go and spend all my spare cash this weekend then
Millions face 10% death tax: Middle class hit hardest by Labour plan to fund elderly care
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1257066/Millions-face-10-death-tax-Middle-class-hit-hardest-Labour-plan-fund-elderly-care.html
144, Trevorsden - yet another apology, just saw this post by you. Agree 100%.
Yes mistakes were made, by many. But the real story was how many did their best, from Ike and Monty and Rommel to the troops of all armies. AND the French resistance, for this was their finest hour.
BTW, there was a bit of comic relief as well:
Believe it was the day after June 6, when some GIs brought in a group of prisoners. Who were dressed in German uniform BUT who didn’t look like Aryan prototypes, to put it mildly. Indeed, they didn’t speak German . . . or any other language the officers in charge of interogating them knew.
After considerable delay, etc, etc, turned out that these guys were KOREANS. Here’s the reader’s digest of the story they told:
>>> when they were born, Korea was part of the Japanese Empire, and in the mid-1930s they were drafted into the Japanses Army.
>>> in the late 1930s there were several major battles between the Japanese and the Russians on the borders of USSR with Korea & Manchuria, and these men were captured by the Russians.
>>> after an invitiation they couldn’t refuse, they were inducted into the Russian Army.
>>> after the German invasion of the USSR, they were captured by the Germans.
>>> like millions of other Soviet POWs, they were enlisted by the Wehrmacht, in their case as Hiwis, that is support troops.
>>> that’s how they found themselves on the shores of the English Channel, as part of a labor brigade working on fortifying the coast of Normandy against the upcomming invasion.
>>> thus when the invasion came in due course, they were captured by the Americans.
>>> and what did the Americans do? By this point, you will NOT be surprised to hear, they were inducted (in a fashion) into the US Army and put to work as (you guessed it) support troops!
Don’t know what happened to them after that, whether they made it back home or not. BUT they’d crossed the entire Eurasian landmass - totally involuntarily - from the Yalu to the Atlantic, in the process serving in four separate armies, changing sides three times.
And wouldn’t be surprised if they’d ended up serving with a Highland regiment!
Quentin Letts very positive about Cameron (which is surprisingly not always the case)
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/debate/article-1257077/QUENTIN-LETTS-Daves-troops-roared-approval.html
I think today’s PMQs was a further polarizing of opinion - but the rightwing press are finally starting to press Labour and support Cameron again.
Re: Voting reform / PR
Do you think two ‘main’ parties who can only gather 15-20% of the vote each on a good day, with memeberships of 100,000 mainly elderly/trade unionist, is a healthy state of affairs?
And this is despite FPTP.
I wonder how many votes the Tories would get if the electorate actually had a choice, and we didn’t live in a society where people like ‘Lord’ Ashcroft can arrogantly say claim that “only 0.2% of the population” matters, and that this is seen as a valid General Election strategy.
I don’t think much more than 4 million.
332. Aaron. I’m thinking about backing Imperial Commander for The Gold Cup. Generally 10/1. What do you, or other PBers think?
334- That’s an amazing story, SSI. Those guys put even Arlen Specter to shame!
4 million / 40 million electorate = 10%
A perhaps over-generous estimate of the number of people who could say they are inspired by David Cameron with a straight face.
Does it matter to Yougov (and Kellner) what we think of these polls? If they gradually move back to sensible weightings as the election approaches and end up with a reasonably accurate result who (other than us
) will remember the 2% lead?
337 - I wouldn’t put you off - it’s certainly an each-way steal at that price (there are plenty of those about at every Festival with 1/4 odds every race, some odds-on bankers, and some bookies offering extra places).
I fully expect Kauto Star to win but please do bear in mind that my interest in the turf is strictly occasional despite working in a bookies!
My demands for a post-election deal, by Nick Clegg
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/my-demands-for-a-postelection-deal-by-nick-clegg-1919439.html
338, LOL!
Since I’ve amused you, perhaps you will join me and pointing out re: the US deficit that it’s not entirely the fault of President Obama? Leastways I seem to remember that his predessor had SOMETHING to do with all the red ink . . .
After all, Joe Biden was NOT the Veep who said “Deficits don’t matter”!
Nick Clegg: ‘We will not play games with other parties’
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/nick-clegg-we-will-not-play-games-with-other-parties-1919446.html
316. Nice graph. a cumulative pdf would be even nicer!
316 getting better
Very interesting way of presenting data - could you please expand on your methodology?
Rod Crosby
Has anyone done any useful research on incumbency weighting?
336. “Millions face 10% death tax: Middle class hit hardest by Labour plan to fund elderly care”
Somehow I knew that was a Daily Mail headline even before I saw the URL…
337/341 - In fact, stjohn, you’ve just prompted me to have an e/w Lucky 15 taking on the bankers… one winner pays double odds and all the e/w parts are value in their own right.
Cheltenham 2010: Supreme Novices Hurdle 2010
Menorah 12/1
Cheltenham 2010: Queen Mother Champion Chase 2010
Kalahari King 5/1
Cheltenham 2010: World Hurdle 2010
Sentry Duty 14/1
Cheltenham 2010: Gold Cup 2010
Imperial Commander 10/1
347. Lot’s, without too many firm conclusions. The incumbency boost seems highest at first defence of a first-term winner (especially if it involves double incumbency), and the Libdem’s incumbency effect is generally higher than that for other parties…
Aaron. Good luck. Nice idea.
A demain.
343- No, you’re right, the budget imbalance is certainly not purely Obama’s fault. It’s part his fault, part Bush’s fault, and part the fault of economic forces outside the control of either Obama or Bush.
But the political reality is that the only thing that matters now is people’s perception of how Obama’s dealing with it. If his only options for the foreseeable future are spending cuts (not gonna happen), tax increases, or simply letting it ride, he’s politically damned no matter what he does. What we will likely see over the next few years is both tax increases AND continuing budget imbalance.
341 I have previously on here suggested that I should have good tips for Cheltenham (my dad being surgeon to many top jump jockeys) but I find it hard to be interested any more; every time I think of Cheltenham I think of Katchit and that reminds me of Tim Corby who bought him as a yearling and named him, and who so sadly died in a car accident last year. I spent quite a few afternoons at the races with Tim and he was one of the finest men I ever met through racing (along with the legendary Alan Ball, the only World Cup winner ever to hug me!)
If I do hear anything, of course I’ll let you all know (after I’ve had a bet!) but I won’t be looking…
Report says Labour 10% death tax will be capped at £50,000 (ie 10% of £500,000).
This means effective rate of IHT will be:
Up to £325,000 - 10%
£325,000 to £500,000 - 50%
£500,000 upwards - 40%
So guess what - the vast majority of Middle England leaving a property will be paying 50%. Unbelievable!!!
346.
My methodology is as follows:
I took the odds on Betfair and worked out where the transition points between the outcomes were in terms of a standard normal distribution.
Then I converted that back into the swings necessary to achieve that distribution, and assumed a normal distribution of the swing with the mean and standard deviation constrained by the Betfair odds.
Then I applied those swings to the seats to see what the probability density function of Conservative seats was.
I then smoothed this a bit but I could not smooth out the bump around around 380 seats because there are so few seats that are gained on an 11-13% swing compared with a 9-11% swing that the pdf expressed in seats around the 380 level actually increases.
While we’re on sports betting, Bet of the Year: TdF - Armstrong. 10/1 still available.
I’m a bit of a Horse Racing anorak so will give the benefit of my views to anyone who’s interested next week
352. Being top dog has allowed the American government to act in a way that would be punished mercilessly in the markets, where it a smaller country.
Its like an errant young adult with an inheritance that’s pissing away the advantage like there’s no tomorrow.
When the usa stops being top dog the hit is going to be hard.
350 Rod
Yes, it was the Lib Dems that prompted the question: the old chestnut of Chris Huhne in Eastleigh in particular.
I wondered if anyone had put figures on variations to ONS achieved by different types of incumbent (e.g. PM, Cabinet Minister, ‘Celebrity’, By Election winner etc.).
If Angus Reid shows the Tory lead down in single figures they really are in trouble.
This Death Tax has the potential to do massive damage to Labour.
Conservatives need to go very hard on this - “Labour Tax Bombshell - Labour will increase Inheritance Tax to 50% on Middle England”.
That message will firm up the Conservative vote and will also lead to “Blair Conservatives” switching back from Lab to Con.
354.”So guess what - the vast majority of Middle England leaving a property will be paying 50%. Unbelievable!!!”
MikeL, this is what happens now when a Labour government runs out of money after Brown ran the Treasury for so long. He has managed to screw Pensions in the good and the bad times for years until they are knackered and the pips are well and truly squeaked. What is it he removed over the last 13 years, over 100 billion? Well that is now broken, he has found every way possible to discourage savings because he wasn’t get the tax, and now its IHT. He is now desperately intent on chasing the dead for even more money. I seriously wonder what the hell he would manage to do to the economy and the future of this country if he or Balls are let loose for another 5 years in government.
354 - Marginal taxation would thus be an utter disgrace in several areas:
Income tax (effective 60% band between £100k-£130k) (not to mention the effective rates that result when getting a job or moving off tax credits)
Stamp duty (rate payable on the whole purchase price, making it very difficult to sell a house for between £250k-£270k)
Surely first principles with all taxation should be that (a0 you are taxed at the margin; and (b) the marginal rate is non-decreasing?
355 getting better
Thanks.
354 So guess what - the vast majority of Middle England leaving a property will be paying 50%. Unbelievable!!!
by Mike L March 11th, 2010 at 12:48 am
More importantly, those previously excluded in working class areas where property is cheaper will now have to pay 10% instead of 0%. Could be a few votes in it, but not for Labour I suspect.
359. “I wondered if anyone had put figures on variations to UNS achieved by different types of incumbent (e.g. PM, Cabinet Minister, ‘Celebrity’, By Election winner etc.).”
Not that I’m aware of.
FWIW, the average changes for the LibDems (over/under any national change), based on the three elections where they went backwards in votes, 1987, 1992 and 1997, are
new incumbent: +3.8%
incumbent stands down: -5.2%
others: +1.5%
366. Oh, and by-election victors usually put on around 15% over the previous GE position, although that is extremely variable…
366 Rod
Thanks.
Will continue to play in this area but most of the effort is going in data capture at the moment.
I guess you must be operating with relational databases. I’m still populating spreadsheets.
352, S&S - would it be fair to include Tom DeLay in “forces outside the control of either Obama & Bush”?
Personally think that ANY new president (with except of President Ron Paul) would have gone for massive and by definition budget-busting stimulus package, as has beend done by every country on earth that could do so. This part ain’t ideology.
Sorry to go on about this but this Death Tax could be the game changer which turns the momentum in this GE campaign.
People are interested in simple things which they can easily understand and which directly affect them - not things like official GDP stats.
This Death Tax ticks all the boxes - it will be a very simple message which the Conservatives will be able to communicate very easily. And people will take notice.
368.
“I guess you must be operating with relational databases. I’m still populating spreadsheets.”
No, just numbers I’ve picked up over the years, doing it the hard way. It also helps to have a near-photographic memory…
367 Rod
And what will be new this time is the negative effect on a) expenses tarred incumbents and on b) new candidates replacing expenses retirees.
I guess there will be data on replacements for disgraced resignees but nothing as pervasive as this pariament’s expenses scandal.
372 Yes, it’s new territory. Few, if any, comparables. I’m sure the “British General Election of 2010″ Nuffield study will have a chapter devoted to the matter…
370. If it’s legitimate for Tories to call it the “Death Tax”, perhaps Labour should dub it the Toff Expiration Levy?
370.MikeL, I agree with you on this issue. Its a really negative development.
Nite all.
Can Mike or someone shout at pollsters, including YouGov, not to release the headline figures without accompanying sample size and field dates? It’s taking me up to 2 days to get the full data in some cases, delaying the update of the Kalman filter…
370. It wont play that well outside of the south of England however, property prices up in the North, Scotland and Wales are no where near the scale of London and the South.
A £300,000 house in the north is pretty darn close to a mansion. This is what £300,000 buys you in the northumberland:
http://tinyurl.com/northumberlandhouse
In Cumbria:
http://tinyurl.com/bramptonhouse
377 - 1,473
If you just ask nicely
March 9/10
378 notme
Since the “Death Tax” component is actually deferred payment for care in old age, it wouldn’t apply in Scotland. However, since if Labour were actually in power to implement it, it would only be with a small majority, and would be pushed through by 40? Scots Labour MPs.
That would seem to me to be likely to provoke an overwhelming demand in England for some form of an English Parliament and Government.
Nytol
379/380. Ta. Better late than never…
Updating now.
383 - How is it late? It’s printed in today’s Sun. That’s what the poll was commissioned for!
This is what the other half wants to buy. Much less than 300k
http://www.rightmove.co.uk/property-for-sale/property-27590567.html?maxPrice=220000&radius=15.0&pageNumber=1&backToListURL=%2Fproperty-for-sale%2Ffind.html%3FlocationIdentifier%3DREGION%255E17420%26maxPrice%3D220000%26radius%3D15.0
Shame we don’t actually have jobs in Norn Iron.
383. little change. One seat flips from LD to Con.
Lab now 2 seats ahead of the Tories on probabilistic UNS.
http://hungparliament2010.blogspot.com/
384. It wasn’t there at 10pm, and AFAIK the Sun did not previously publish the sample size or field dates. If they are doing so now, please, please keep it up.
It’s a pointless argument, Rod, but I’ve got the first edition on my desk and it has the info you wanted. I know that sometimes they haven’t though.
Rod, there was a 40-31 ICM on 4th March - where is this on your graph? You do not have any Con poll on 40% since start of March.
The problem with Cameron is that he’s suddenly lost all confidence in his own policies.
If you have a policy, like raising the inheritance threshold, you have to stand by it and try to convince the electorate that it’s the right thing to do.
It seems that Cameron has become totally rattled by his opponent’s response to that particular policy, and now he seems to be embarrassed about it and wishing it didn’t exist. If you have a policy like that you have to stand up and fight for it like Thatcher would have done.
A disastrous situation for Cameron. No wonder his poll lead has fallen from 20% to 5%.
389. There was also a YouGov 38:32 on 4th March, which is statistically indistinguishable from the ICM. Therefore it is sensible to take a weighted average of the two, giving
38.76 : 31.62 : 17.38
for the 4th March…
You will notice that situation on the graphs, where the dots are not on an integer.
391. Thanks, Rod.
Is that your normal policy - ie whenever there is more than one poll on a single day you average them and plot the average as a single point on the graph?
And presumably it is given additional weight as it is 2 polls?
392. Yes. You add the sample sizes together, and weight the individual polls to arrive at the average.
i.e.
weighted poll average=
p1*n1+p2*n2
———–
n1+n2
weighted sample size = n1+n2
This weighted poll is fed into the Kalman as the “poll” for that day.
393. Thanks again, Rod.
One last question(!) Are you including Harris and Opinium in your model? And if so, when from? (On UKPR Anthony has gone back and input all Opinium polls).
393. Oops, the denominator shifted left when posted.
To clarify, ((p1*n1)+(p2*n2)) is divided by (n1+n2)
According to UNS the Tory majority in 1992 should have been 71, not 21.
394. Yes, I’ve included them, and TNS and BPIX. Only the last Opinium had sample size, so only it was included (so far).
Closer to the election, I may run separate KFs for each polling house, to give an idea of the variation, if any. Even semi-automated it is a time consuming process, so I won’t be able to do that on a daily basis. I’ll aim for weekly.
397. Thanks again, Rod. No more questions tonight!
392. The reason for doing it is because the KF can only accept one datapoint per period, and a day is the smallest period. The weighted averaging is an accepted statistical technique for pooling two polls.
Another wrinkle is the field dates. Which date do you choose as “the” date? You have to have an arbitrary method of resolving this, and apply it consistently.
If 2 field dates, I take the 2nd
If 3 field dates, I take the 2nd
If 4 field dates, I take the 3rd
If 5 field dates, I take the 3rd
If 6 field dates, I take the 4th
i.e. FLOOR(f/2)+1, where f is the number of field dates
An alternative would be to divide the sample size n by f, and impute a small poll of sample size (n/f) to each field date f1,f2,f3…
Previous studies that shown that there is negligible difference in the output between the two methods.
Hi Rod, so am I right in thinking you have included all polls including the new Opinium but not ARS ? I vaguely remember you saying and I might be wrong, that you excluded it because it was unproven in UK elections. I can understand that so how come Opinium is included?
400. Let’s not start that again.
ARS is so way off from the other pollsters with the Labour vote it can’t reasonably be included with the rest, for reasons I have given previously.
I’m looking very carefully at the new polls, and hoping that they can be included. At the moment they are, experimentally. But that may change.
And it’s not because ARS, or anyone else, are pro/anti Labour/Tory. It’s because statistically they cannot be pooled, as they are manifestly measuring different things.
I want, probably more than most, to be able to estimate support for the parties accurately - so either trust me or go and do your own thing…
re 391. Not sensible at all Rod. How can you average out a poll taken online with one set of weightings and the potential audience limited to members of a polling panel with a telephone survey with a totally different weighting structure where, theoretically anybody in Britain with a land-line can take part?
re 401. This is when you get really stupid and obstinate. In 1997 you would have ruled out ICM on the same basis because it was even more out of line than AR is now.
401 - thanks for reply Rod, crikey you’ve jumped to a few conclusions there re my question. I was trying to understand why a new pollster was included, I’m not sure if they are even in the BPC which was part of your criteria iirc.
I understood why ARS was excluded you made a case for it at the time, but the addition of Opinium threw me. Anyway thanks for reply, it’s useful to know who is included when looking at your graphs.
Mike S - as you are around what are your thoughts on the issue of people not registered to vote?
The Electoral Commission says over 50% of 18 to 24 year-olds are not registered. Surely pollsters should be factoring this in? Do you think you should raise this issue with pollsters?
You do not need to be Einstein to work out that Labour supporters are more likely to not be registered than Conservative supporters.
402. Because they are usually statistically indistinguishable. That is all I am interested in, and it’s a perfectly valid approach that worked well in 2005, and even in 2001 and 1997.
You are hung up on irrelevancies, such as polling house “name” or “methodology.” The data is all that matters…
404. Apologies if I’ve rattled your cage, but sometimes the numbers have to be leavened with a little judgement. ARS can’t be pooled with the rest.
At the end of the day, either ARS will be proved right, or it will look like an @rse…
Place your bets.
Rod, hypothetical, but as Mike said would you have ignored ICM in 1997 as it was so far outside stat range of the other pollsters?
Would your judgement have said (after leavening…) that they must be wrong as everyone else says essentially the same thing…….?
Mike S
It would be interesting to see a graph of the pollsters for the last two elections like the one you showed for 1997 ?
Of course when the government get it wrong its not widely reported or even at times covered up. Such as this gem which on this occasion has been reported. No apology to the house though as Cameron had the courage to do openly. No Ed Balls does it from cover hoping the original statement will stick. Rather nasty I think and no wonder these polls are so close when such distotions are common place.
Ed Balls admitted to being wrong to Michael Gove…
“Following our exchange in the House yesterday I have now had an opportunity to look in detail at the figures you quote and I can confirm that they are, on this occasion, correct.”
http://waugh.standard.co.uk/2010/03/balls-admits-defeat-on-freeschoolmealsoxbridge-kind-of.html
Hat tip Guido
408.
At the end of the day, either ARS will be proved right, or it will look like an @rse…
Place your bets.
I bet @rse.
Tomorrow we should get the first PB/Angus Reid poll of the month.
Not if it’s favourable to The Tories?