YouGov vs AR: Is it all down to the weightings?
March 12th, 2010
When you get two polls, apparently so far apart as YouGov and Angus Reid, it’s very hard to come up with an explanation except by digging deep into the the data.
Fortunately we got all the Angus Reid data from the latest poll within hours of its publication. The weighting data is here while the details cross-tabs are here.
The YouGov information should be available this morning but for comparison purposes I’ve used the weighting statement form a couple of days ago. The proportions will not have changed.
The main difference between the firms is that the former weights by political party identification while the latter simply links back everything to that which respondents said they did at the 2005 election.
Notice how “Labour Loyal” from YouGov is almost exactly the same as Angus Reid’s weighted Labour segment.
It is “Labour disloyal” and the corresponding down-scaling of the proportion of Lib Dems in the YouGov structure which is at the heart. Thus while 16.75% of the weighted AR sample is made up of 2005 Lib Dem voters YouGov has only 11.96% allocated to those identifying themselves as Lib Dems.
Notice how the AR sample includes a much bigger allocation weighted to “others” which might partly explain the higher shares it reports for this segment.
So who has got this right? They are probably both wrong and that YouGov is overstating Labour position while AR is understating it. That certainly is what the other polls, particularly ICM, seem to be telling us. All will become, clear, surely by mid-afternoon on May 7th.
Mike Smithson
MessageSpace Advertising
Matt Lebo prediction, as of January 2010
Con 311
Lab 265
Seminar at Trinity College Dublin, today 12th March, and Essex University next Tuesday 16th March
http://www.tcd.ie/Political_Science/postgraduate/seminar_docs/Lebo%20and%20Norpoth%20Forecast%202010.pdf
However, Labour and Brown have recovered further since January, when Lebo wrote…
“The values used for our current forecast are based on MORI’s January 2010 poll that puts PM Approval at 33% and the two-party vote at 72%. As indicated by the star on Figure 4, this translates into a predicted vote lead of 6.9% for the Tories. This prediction is quite a bit better for Labour than would have been predicted based on numbers from December 2009. As will be shown in the seat predictions that follow, the uptick in Mr Brown’s popularity has made a Conservative plurality, rather than a majority, the most likely outcome of the 2010 election but it has also put the possibility of a Labour seat lead on the map…”
My take: Brown has been hitting 35% - 36% in recent approval polls, which indicates a photo-finish in seats…
I believe Mike has Matt Lebo on standby for a guest slot.
re 1. The problem with MORI is that it does not politically weight its samples and generally has 7-8% more past-Labour voters in than it should. Lebo perhaps ought to have taken that into consideration.
I have asked Matt Lebo, who is a Canadian like Angus Reid, to do a guest slot.
On the topic of OTHERS,I have essayed a small Book on Plaid Cymru and the SNP on Betfair’s new market.
Go to Seat Markets via Politics and Next General Election.
PC Seats 4.5 Over/Under, I go 2.1 Under and 1.62 Over.
SNP Seats Over/Under 5.5 (silly range), I go 1.09 Over and 8.2 Under.
2. The 35-36% figures I quote are the YouGov ones.
It’s going to be Feb 1974 all over again, Mike.
Absolutely no doubt about it…
It’s fun to see how the ConHome commenters have started disparaging YouGov and praising AR as the gaps have changed
re 5. Very different question from YouGov Rod - you cannot make the comparison.
I don’t make predictions like that. To say “there is absolutely no doubt” is crazy.
What are we all going to talk about when this election’s over?
For its Scottish polls, YouGov weights Scottish Labour-identifying respondents to SNP-identifying respondents at a ratio of over 2.5 to 1.
This is preposterous in a country where the SNP has been the largest political party in the last 2 national elections.
At the last 3 national elections, the ratio of Lab to SNP voters has been as follows (to two sig figs):
Euro June 2009:
0.7 : 1
Holyrood May 2007:
1 : 1
Westminster May 2005:
2.2 : 1
So, why on earth are YouGov using a ratio of 2.5 : 1 ? There is just no rational explanation. I really am totally stumped.
The only explanation for Peter Kellner’s behaviour in this regard is… something that I’d rather not express on a respectable political blog like PB. If Kellner has a leg to stand on, I challenge him to come on to PB and make his case for skewing the weightings so much in SLAB’s favour. His ongoing silence in this regard bodes very, very ill for YouGov’s good reputation.
Big Brother for me. The stakes are far higher.
Lebo, Nadeau, the polls, swingback - all say the same thing, independently.
Mike Smithson says what, exactly?
Go on, don’t snipe, nail your colours to the mast…
8. whether the Tories will cease to exist after the AV referendum?
@8 What are we all going to talk about when this election’s over?
by Mike Smithson March 12th, 2010 at 4:58 am
Oh it will be post mortem time, naturally.
Latest Angus Reid/PB Scottish sub-sample (usual caveats apply).
Westminster voting intention - Scotland
Fieldwork: 9-10 March 2010
Sub-sample size: 173
(+/- change from UK GE 2005)
Lab 36% (-3)
SNP 28% (+10)
LD 17% (-6)
Con 15% (-1)
UKIP 2% (+2)
Grn 1% (n/c)
BNP 0 (n/c)
oth 1%
http://www.visioncritical.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/03/table_voting05_bri.pdf
The Scottish Liberal Democrats will be MIGHTY pleased to see their numbers ticking up, especially seeing them out of the rock-solid 4th place they have been holding since early 2006 (when they pole-axed Charlie Kennedy).
If the real UK GE result is anything like this, then it will be an umitigated disaster for Annabel Goldie and David McLetchie. In fact, I find it very, very hard to believe that Goldie could survive yet another electoral massacre.
Mike — About the Midterms in the US… ?
Many thanks to Stars and Stripes to keep us posted on ObamaCare in the previous threads…
Implication of Lebo’s forecast (Jan 2010) is the LibDems doing poorly (net loss of almost 20 seats), but the Tories not doing significantly better than UNS against Labour..
In contrast, here is the latest YouGov/Sun Scottish sub-sample (usual caveats apply).
Westminster voting intention - Scotland
Fieldwork: 9-10 March 2010
Sub-sample size: 123
(+/- change from UK GE 2005)
Lab 49% (+10)
SNP 20% (+2)
Con 15% (-1)
LD 9% (-14)
BNP 4% (+4)
UKIP 2% (+2)
Grn 2% (+1)
oth 0
http://www.yougov.co.uk/extranets/ygarchives/content/pdf/TheSun-results_10.03-trackers.pdf
So, apart from the Scottish Tories being exactly the same (at 15%), the YouGov findings bear very little resemblance to the Angus Reid findings.
Scottish Labour up 10 points on UK GE 2005?!? Aye right!
Scottish Lib Dems down 14 points on UK GE 2005?!? Aye right!
Kellner, get your brain in gear man. You are making one huge f*** up of your Scottish polling.
Looks like being a pollster is a mug’s game right now. Very easy to make a hash of the poll shares and for sure either AR or YouGov will get some serious reputational egg on face in May.
Some aspects of polling bug me. We get obsessed with ‘swing’ – on the assumption that voters move from one party to another. For certain UNS is no more than a directional thing and even getting more detailed and localised swing figures for certain marginal seats is going to be hit and miss. Sure some voters do swing from one party to another (mostly between Labour and LibDems), but I suspect far bigger numbers for each party simply don’t vote or stop not voting.
If Brown disliking Labour inclined voters stay at home and previously stay-at-home Tory inclined voters are motivated to come back again then we would see a numerological ‘swing’ but with potentially zero actual voters changing who they vote for. I strongly feel that the political mood music effects the outcome much more by determining the numbers for each party that turn up on the day and much less by changing people’s minds about who they vote for. Tactical voting is a minor league sport.
Differential turnouts by region or in marginal seats will play havoc with seat prediction models. It’s one reason I try to treat the polls as background music only and focus much more on the actual number of votes cast in each seat and ask myself will the number for each party go up or down and why. Do that 650 times and a result drops out.
“Some aspects of polling bug me. We get obsessed with ‘swing’ – on the assumption that voters move from one party to another.”
Not really. Swing is a summary statistic that encompasses movements in many directions. It’s also a good predictor of seats changing hands…
The latest ComRes/Independent Scottish sub-sample was:
Westminster voting intention - Scotland
Fieldwork: 26-28 February 2010
Sub-sample size: 89
(+/- change from UK GE 2005)
Lab 31% (-8)
SNP 29% (+11)
Con 20% (+4)
LD 17% (-6)
BNP 0 (n/c)
Grn 0 (-1)
UKIP 0 (n/c)
oth 4%
http://www.comres.co.uk/systems/file_download.aspx?pg=559&ver=2
So, ComRes is much much more in line with Angus Reid. YouGov are definitely the odd-man-out. Why Kellner? Why?
(I cannot find the detailed Harris or Opinium tables. Has anyone got the links?)
I’ll try again with an earlier post which i don’t think has had a response - am i writing complete nonsense?
Can someone answer a query about political weighting? It seems to me that there is a danger that it could potentially lead to a party’s support rising in the polls whilst it is dropping in reality.
Because, especially with online polling, as a party’s support falls, many of its natural political supporters won’t bother to complete the surveys. Which could lead to the strongest supporters attracting a greater weighting over time to compensate and to ensure that the ‘quotas’ are reached.
by alex March 11th, 2010 at 9:28 pm
Very good, balanced, thread.
One very minor quibble: we don’t know for 100% that it’s May 6th, so we ought to allow for the possibility still of another date, even if they are less likely.
Good thread though.
…and I’m sure the weighting delta is really somehow a struggle with agreeing on how to model who will turn up.
It’s instructive to look at the party turnout numbers here. The current group of Tory MPs were essentially all elected on a good turnout in their seats (94% of them with over 60% turnout). For Labour only 41% were elected in seats with this level of turnout. There are large numbers of seats where the Tories lost narrowly and because their own vote fell away after 1997 not because Labour advanced. If Labour cannot keep their voters or the Tories voters are of a mind to come back then these seats will fall.
After so much politics recently I think nearly everyone already knows how they would vote if they vote. The key to getting the predictions right will be to nail who will vote and who will not. I think pollsters don’t address this at all adequately. And for the politicians the key is to get your votes out much, much more than persuading the other guy’s voters to change team.
Even a modest overall increase in turnout is likely to mask falling Labour numbers and increasing Tory numbers. But to what extent will this happen? It is a cert that the Tory vote will go up – they have a hard core high 30s to 40% that want to see this government out. But by how much is debatable. The real uncertainty is Labour’s vote. Disdain or dismay will depress some element of it but fear of personal implications will harden the resolve of other elements. My own suspicion is that the apathetic Labour elements will be more in middle England (where the fired up Tories are) and the fired up Labour element is more in their heartlands. (Do the pollsters give detailed likelihood to vote data in the marginals?)
The polls and ‘swing’ will be in the ICM range but because of differential turnouts the seat outcome will be more in the Cooke neck of the woods. So paradoxically both Rod and Andy may be right at the same time!
8 - Mike. If Rod’s right (HUGE if), we’ll be talking about the election in the autumn.
I concur that YouGov are seriously getting Scotland wrong and it is skewing all their data.
22 - We have seen a weird situation in one YouGov where many fewer Lab IDs that were found, due to the weighting added it did seem to show Labour tick up.
I think that this is just an anomaly.
THE UNION MONSTER BROWN HID FOR 13 YEARS TURNS ON HIM!
This is the Sun’s headline.
“GORDON Brown was last night powerless against a Frankenstein monster HE has unleashed - as Labour’s union paymasters plotted a terrifying return to 1970s-style STRIKES.
Militants were poised to put the boot into Britain’s stricken economy by paralysing the railways, grounding planes and ordering walkouts by millions of public sector workers.
The wave of carefully targeted strikes - also involving prison officers, town hall staff and county council workers - threatens to bring the nation grinding to a halt.
But despite the suicidal spectre of the feeble economy being plunged back into recession - meaning even more job losses - power-crazed union barons are convinced they now have the whip-hand.
All-out industrial war loomed as Downing Street made it clear the PM will not lift a finger to stop Britain being held to ransom.
Mr Brown wrung his hands in helpless silence as the trade union monster he kept caged and docile for 13 years as Chancellor and then PM turned on his Government.
His spokesman passed the buck, saying only: “The Prime Minister obviously follows any industrial action issues closely and leaves it to the specific departments to make comments.”
Union bosses have been buoyed by this week’s humiliating climbdown by Royal Mail - which dished out generous pay rises and shorter hours to avert a shutdown.
Loudmouth RMT leader Bob Crow has been itching for months to shut down the RAILWAYS.
With Labour’s long reign in power drawing to a close and with little to lose, he has ordered his troops into battle. Strike dates could be announced next Friday.
He declared: “Nobody should be under any illusions how determined our members are to win this dispute.”
At BRITISH AIRWAYS, bosses were yesterday kept on tenterhooks as union leaders held back dates for a walkout by 12,000 cabin crew.
Meanwhile featherbedded CIVIL SERVANTS threaten to bring the very business of government to a halt in a row over pay.
The reason the PM is doing nothing was brutally exposed by a former health minister last week - millions in union handouts to Labour.
Labour’s Lord Warner revealed Mr Brown surrendered to NHS unions over pay for fear of biting the hand that feeds the party.
He said: “Gordon reverted to the traditional Labour line in health, to support the unions who are the paymaster of the Labour Party in the run-up to the election.”
The giant Unite union - which represents BA cabin crew - is virtually run by Mr Brown’s thuggish but unelected henchman Charlie Whelan.
Mr Whelan, widely blamed for leaking Peter Mandelson’s dodgy mortgage, was kicked out of the Treasury ten years ago after a blazing row with Downing Street.
He is a close pal of Mr Brown’s former official spokesman Damian “McPoison” McBride - who was sacked last year for spreading lies about Tory wives.
Today, Mr Whelan brags he holds the Unite purse strings which saved Labour from going bust.
He is using the union’s cash and influence to set up Cabinet leftie Ed Balls as Labour’s next leader.
Far from taking on the unions Mr Brown is preparing to stuff the House of Commons with their leading members.
Fifty-nine of Labour’s prospective parliamentary candidates are members of Unite, eight more are staff or ex-staff of the union, while another 26 belong to the GMB and 18 more belong to Unison.
The four key unions Labour is in hock to after being given a fortune since the last general election are:
UNITE, which has bankrolled the party to the tune of £11million in the last three years.
Its joint general secretaries are Derek Simpson and Tony Woodley.
UNISON - Britain’s biggest trade union - which has given Labour £8,277,873.35.
Its General Secretary is Dave Prentis.
The GMB which has coughed up £6,328,992.70 since 2005. This week it asked staff at British Gas to vote in a strike ballot. It cited alleged bullying by management and changes to staff terms and conditions.
The COMMUNICATION WORKERS UNION - which last summer masterminded strikes at Royal Mail. It has given Labour £4,592,531.43.
Experts said leaders were timing their threats - hopeful that the PM will urge bosses to cave in so he can avoid a PR disaster in the run-up to the election.
Read more: http://www.thesun.co.uk/sol/homepage/news/2889555/The-union-monster-he-hid-for-13-years-turns-on-Brown.html#ixzz0hwXhD6PB
Will this be the nail in GB’s coffin, and his scorched earth legacy?
YouGov weighting adjustment from Conservative to Labour
22/02 +14.61%
23/02 +20.15%
24/02 +21.28%
25/02 +18.81%
01/03 +3.35%
02/03 +14.89%
03/03 +10.60%
04/03 +30.08%
08/03 +37.77%
09/03 +24.05%
10/03 +15.95%
Date = poll completion date
28 - Of a completely different order of magnitude to Ashcroft. Obviously this will lead all the news bulletins for several days…..
28 Financier
Another piece on the same page says “No fewer than 59 Labour prospective MPs are members of the party’s paymaster union Unite.”
What will the post-election PLP be like?
28. “Will this be the nail in GB’s coffin, and his scorched earth legacy?”
Only if the BBC run it.
Posted last night, others are also hinting…
what I hear being said about this awkward business simply cannot be true, can it? That Number 10 is desperate to stop the Unite strike causing havoc for air passengers. And that certain people within Unite are putting pressure on the union’s section dealing with the cabin crew’s potential strike to just get a deal quickly ahead of the election to avoid embarrassment. That in recent days is what the overtures from the union to management in ongoing talks were about, but then the pesky BA management dared to turn them down (although let’s see). Couldn’t Labour do without a strike at the country’s biggest airline organised by the union which is funding the party’s election campaign and whose political department head is so close to the Prime Minister?
http://blogs.wsj.com/iainmartin/2010/03/12/whelans-baffling-silence-on-his-unions-strike-at-british-airways/
Reposting this from last night
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/economics/7423138/Europes-banks-brace-for-UK-debt-crisis.html
“UniCredit has alerted investors in a client note that Britain is at serious risk of a bond market and sterling debacle and faces even more intractable budget woes than Greece.”
Not to worry, there will be no boom and bust and we are best placed…..
26. David Roe - “I concur that YouGov are seriously getting Scotland wrong and it is skewing all their data.”
Coming from an employee of the Scottish Sun (who are currently paying part of Peter Kellner’s wages), that is particularly worrying.
David, I concurred with your guesstimate last week of the state of play in Scotland (Lab low 30s, SNP mid-high 20s, Con approx 20, LD mid teens). Nothing I have seen or heard has changed my mind since than.
We have still not had a proper explanation for YouGov’s, ahem, ‘adjustments’. And it’s these adjustments that have led to the narrowing lead.
So, why?
There has been no real world results to suggest such a change was needed at the beginning of this year. Where were divergences in YouGov polling from the 2009 elections that prompted the necessity for change? Locals, Europeans or the earlier London Mayoral? No.
Then we’re told the changes were tested against the traditional YouGov assumptions before the switch was made. And the outcomes were the more or less the same.
In which case, why change?
And why not continue to show the results using the earlier methodology, for all to see whether there is now a difference between them or whether the old method now confirms the narrowing gap?
The recent results do suggest that YouGov is apart from the mainstream.
AR are basing their results on how people said they’d vote last time around in a comparable election. Yougov are basing their results on how people said they’d vote and then using some sort of nebulous ‘weighting’ based on their own opinions about who is likely to win as an excuse to delete a sizeable chunk of votes.
I’m no expert but the AR method sounds far more sensible.
We had a thread on UNITE some while back on here that summarised the scale of their influence over Labour. About 40% of Labour’s donations come from them.
The amazing thing is why the Conservative media employees were unable to drive that through the newspapers.
Sadly they remain cr*p.
8 ‘What are we all going to talk about when this election’s over?’
Rod Crosby’s betting losses.
I broadly agree with Patrick’s comments on the importance of differential turnout. A very good recent example was the London Mayoral election when Boris succeeded in persuading large numbers in leafier suburbs to vote for the first time in a Mayoral and won. In a general the turnout is already higher so the differential opportunities should be less but turnout was low in 2005. Was that because Labour supporters were unhappy with the illegal war and stayed home (broadly the Kellner assumption) or was it because natural Tories were underwhelmed by the Tory core vote strategy but might now be tempted by DC’s more inclusive image?
My own thought is that there will be a strong desire to punish the worst Government in my lifetime and either the Lib Dems or the Tories will gain from that depending on their position in the particular seat. This would be the reverse effect of what happened to the Tories in 1997 and might be described as the Cooke effect.
One last thought since I am determined to actually do some work today. Given the fact that 3 Labour MPs are being dragged before a court on criminal charges, that there is still a folk memory of Tory grandees claiming for duck houses, moat cleaning and fertiliser, given that the PM himself had to return a five figure sum and all parties have been tainted by sleeze are the “others” figures in Angus Reid so remarkable? I think the “others” will suffer most of all with differential turnout on election day and will come in lower but they may well reflect what people think today.
These weightings are all very fishy with yougov. If there is sampling bias you need to improve your sample, not just “correct” the bias to what your preconceived idea is. One or other popster is going to come out with its credibility in shreds.
Mind you I think the publicity given to the yougov polls motivate complacent Tory activists, pressure potential UKIP/Tory voters and falsely reassure Labour activists. I am sanguine about them.
Bottler Brown will chicken out of May 6th and go for June, with some feeble excuse.
There are betting opportunities arise from the Yougov and AR polls. Yougov has the greater influence so I doubt that the odds for a Conservative will become more attractive.
That said the political runes are being interpreted by the media as a growing chance of a Labour win. That is wrong and it is distorting the activities of all parties. If the newspapers thought that there was zero chance of another Brown Govt they would be less receptive to the spin that his slime merchants are producing and would be chucking buckets of smellly stuff over Brown.
Thus Yougov’s “unique weighting” is creating the seeds for its forecast of a Labour Govt. That is the issue which Stephen Shakespeare seems to be sleeping through in going along with this “unique weighting”.
I agree with Suart that Kellner needs to explain why he polls the combined vote of Libs, Tories and SNP in Scptland as less than Labour. If he wants to bet that is the outcome I will throw as much at that bet as he is prepared to make. Free money indeed.
If any semblance of the same voting methodology to this drivel is done in England as well then it has no relevance as a poll whatsoever.
Mr baroness ashto may be squeaky clean, but the methodology is total lunacy.
An average of 49% in Scotland would require 70% plus votes for labour in the west as in many areas outside benefit City they are non existent.
He should be embarrassed even publishing this.
41 Why ask Kellner? I understood that Shakespeare is back as its CEO? Maybe we need to ask Shakespeare to explain the matter that Kellner ducked. We should not be too rude about Kellner as he is I suspect just the face of Yougov. Shakespeare should have a better grasp of the detail.
Anyway as betting folk we should look out for the opportunities that Yougov’s mistakes are creating. Unfortunately democracy is also getting skewed by it because of Yougov’s solid brand image in the media.
F1: it’s bonkers HRT (Hispania Racing Team, not Hormone Replacement Therapy) haven’t turned a single wheel in F1 until P1 of Bahrain.
40. “There are betting opportunities arise from the Yougov and AR polls. Yougov has the greater influence so I doubt that the odds for a Conservative will become more attractive.”
Should be the opposite shouldn’t it? Tory falling leads -) odds on Tories winning stuff go up?
Of course, whether that’s ‘more attractive’ depends on to what extent you believe the polls.
40 The polls have been swinging around lately. Right now we are at the pro-Labour end of the swing. The budget, defence starvation, the unions, a natural movement in the polls anyway, sovereign debt crises, more Labour MPs in court, etc, etc - there are a million things which can and probably will push the polls back towards their 40 / 30 / 20 equilibrium. As we get closer to an election it may be that the press decides Labour are indeed going to lose and give him a final savaging - so making it a self fulfilling prophecy.
19. Excellent post, Patrick.
I do accept Rod’s points at 20 as well - especially the critical one about it being “a good predictor of seats changing hands” - but always prefer to talk about ‘net swing’ unless I mean a direct switch from party A to party B as that I think that better recognises the multitudinous movements going on including to and from abstainers.
Ferraris top at the moment of P1.
Force India doing well.
However, fuel is unknown.
Question Time on YouTube: Question Time 11th March.
48, what did you make of QT, Bob?
I thought Greening was quite good. Flint did ok until the soldier’s webbing and her own statement about Brown came up, then she looked like a prize moron. Swinson was pointless.
From the ‘Mark Senior school for inflated Lib Dem claims from little by elections”. Step forward Lib Dem PPC Helen Duffett.
Duff by name and duff by ….
“Tory holds weakening”
Two by-election results just in – both saw a reduction in the Conservative vote and increases in the Liberal Democrat vote”
http://www.libdemvoice.org/
Well here is one of those elections. LibDems got a whopping er er what 7%? And finished in a strongish ….. 4th…. The Conservative vote weakened by the enormous … 0.8% (yes the decimal is in the right place).
Wellingborough BC, Redwell West ward:
Con 570 (58.2%; -0.8%)
Lab 169 (17.2%; +2.2%)
BNP 84 (8.6%; -7.1%)
LD Penny Wilkins 72 (7.3%; +3.8%)
Eng Dem 62 (6.3%; +6.3%)
Green 23 (2.3%; -0.9%)
Turnout 37.7% (-5.6%)
Con HOLD
Perhaps a more accurate heading would be ‘Lib Dems beaten again into 4th place by the BNP and get under 10% of the vote.’
A quick comment on the AR vs YouGov polls last night.
Just because YouGov are out on a limb, it doesn’t mean they’re wrong. The sole riders in 1992 and 1997 were much closer to the mark than the pack. That said, I don’t think the gap is anything like as small as three points and YouGov are underestimating it.
What I do find worrying is how Others are polling, which probably is something of a ‘plague on all your houses’ vote and has been re-engaged after the expenses scandal faded partly by the trials arising out of that but more by Labour’s deliberate attack strategy. Coming at a time when politicians will soon have to take unpopular decisions because of the budget deficit, mudthrowing is playing with fire and can only play into the hands of extremists.
Given the savaging that team blue have been getting over Ashcroft (1% of all Conservative income) it’s astounding that the press have been giving a free ride to Labour over their union donations (40%+ of all Labour income)
A couple of days ago the Trolls attacked me for suggesting that YouGov is mis-weighting the Labour-Loyal/Labour-Disloyal segments of its panel.
But in the graphic above I think I can see what’s happening here. My insight came from canvassing in the key Labour-held marginal of Great Yarmouth [no 47 on the Tory list] last Saturday.
Knocking on doors in a middle-of-the-road sort of street it became clear that those who had previously consistently voted for Blair were now actively going to vote tactically against Labour.
It wasn’t just one-or-two but lots and we didn’t find a single Labour-Loyal voter in 2 hours.
So, what’s this telling me? I think that there’s a sea-change going on amongst those who voted for Blair. I’ve termed them the Blair Conservatives. They are anti-Brown and will not vote for Labour. Oh No.
But YouGov’s Achilles heel is that it has these members of it’s panel as Labour-Loyal ID. And that’s because, these voters turned-out for Labour in 1997, 2001 & 2005. I suppose I’d call that ‘loyal’ too.
But I think that the Labour-loyals have diminished into a small idealogical rump, perhaps 20-25% of the electorate leaving the Blair-voters behind.
So, what’s the effect of this going to be when YouGov asks the members of its panel for a VI?
First of all, many of those loyal 1997-2005 Labour voters say they’re voting against or indicate that they haven’t made up their mind. So the number of Labour-Loyal people saying they’ll vote Labour is under-represented in the raw result. And there’s a reason for that!
But no bother, YouGov just inflates it from 320 to 454. Up 41%. Come off it!
At least it gets it right with the Labour-Disloyals. The weighting reflects a modest fall from 122 to 105 [down 14%]. I suspect these are going to LibDem or UKIP, hence the rise in ‘others.’
So, why might YouGov be inflating the Labour-Loyal figure so much?
Perversely, this is where YouGov is at a disadvantage to the new-kids-on-the-block, Angus Reid.
YouGov has a long history on all it’s panel. ARS does not. And YouGov’s history is acting against it for it is unable to respond rapidly enough to changes. The Party-ID is acting like a sheet anchor, damping-down any changes in the raw data. That’s the first thing.
And the second things at the heart of YouGov’s problem is that they have [understandably] mis-classified the 1997-2005 Blair-Conservatives as Labour-Loyal. They’re not. They just liked that nice man Mr Blair and got spooked by scary Michael Howard, even if they thought Blair had made a mistake over Iraq. But under Mr Brown, they’re not Labour Loyal any more. In the diminishing Labour-Loyal tribe, YouGiov is compounding their mis-calssification problem with extra system-weights to try to rebalance for voter preferences that just do not exist.
So, I’ve done a little thought-experiment. I’m postulating that half the Labour-Loyals in the poll above that aren’t that. I’m going to suggest that half of the 320 are Blair-Conservatives, that is, Labour Disloyal.
This means that the unweighted figures would be 160 Lab-Loy and 282 Lab-DisLoy. Now, if we boost the Lab-Loy’s by 41% and reduce the Lab-DisLoy’s by 14% as the headline poll has done, we get a weighted result of 227 Lab-Loy and 242 Lab-DisLoy. In other words, a Labour total of 469. The headline total has a total of 559. That’s a difference of 90! And I’m not even going to attempt to explain how some of that 90 should really be in the Conservative box as the LabDisloyals tactically vote against Brown.
Wow!
So, my explanation for YouGov is that they are hamstrung by their history. They have understandably but mistakenly classified too many of the 1997-2005 Blair voters as Labour Loyal, when they’re not.
Because they’re having to boost the LabLoyal portion [by 41% in this poll], obviously, Labour is apparently doing better that they really are…. which appeals to a hung-parliament narrative, which sells papers.
They’ve correctly identified LabDisloyal as moving away from Labour [to the LibDems?] by 14% but I don’t think it’s quite enough.
And to answer the key question posed by Mike in this thread, of course, is that ARS don’t have enough history to have to make these false assumptions on PartyID. They just ask about 2005. There’s no bogus hokum about 1997/2001 at all.
I guess that YouGov did their fieldwork in a stable and benign political environment. Now we’re in choppy waters, their weighting methodology isn’t fleet-enough-of-foot to recognise the change that people like me are seeing when we knock on doors, dragging YouGov panel members away from the mouse and actually talking to them.
Perhaps the wonks at YouGov should get out a bit more.
[I'll put on my tin hat!]
Bunnco - Your Man on the Spot
51 I’m not sure anything at the GE will play into the hands of extremists. I think we can be prety sure that the total of BNP + UKIP + Green MPs after the GE will be zero. What the ‘other’ vote will do is impact the relative performance of the main parties - in different ways in different seats.
OK as I understand it AR weight based on how you voted at the last election, and YouGov weight on party ID. So from that perspective I can see that Labour Disloyal may be an important group.
However I don’t understand how, in what is clearly a change year, you can possibly have the correct weights based on party ID. Surely to say before you start the poll that you need a certain ratio of people who identify themselves with Labour must skew the result when what you are really trying to find out is how many people no longer identify themselves with Labour.
Or am I missing something
YOU GOV versus AR versus ICM - who will be the closest on May 6, perhaps the most interesting bet of all.
While I agree with much that is written about voters liking the poll that favours their party, I would like to introduce two objective factors: CONSISTENCY and SIMPLICITY. Why is the YouGov weighting relatively so complex? Is actual voting and voting intention that complex? I don’t know, perhaps it is, but my instinct tells me that it is not. Also, I asked Peter Kellner on PB whether they’ve changed their weighting methodology in the last 18 months - his answer was a little vague but said they “keep watching it” Which of course, begs the question, as to which STANDARD or criteria they use… a bit loosey-goosey to me. I suggest the most accurate will be ICM, AR, YOUGOV in that order UNLESSS YOUGOV starts changing its weightings… Any views?
53. Bunnco
Spot on… And it makes the shock they are going to get on GE day even more exciting!
53. Excellent analysis and worthy of a thread in its own right.
The only point I’d quibble with is your reclassification of Labour Disloyal as Blair Conservatives. Aren’t they just floating / swing voters who by definition tend to end up on the winning side?
As alluded to at 45 I think the Brown epiphany has a way to run. The budget is going to be a disaster, etc, etc. The narrative will move away from Brown before the day. The final result will be mre like AR - but I also think that all polls will be more in that ball park before the day.
However Yougov are having a much bigger influence on the commentariat than AR.
51.
“mudthrowing is playing with fire”
Really?
Mike Smithson @7: “I don’t make predictions like that. To say “there is absolutely no doubt” is crazy.”
http://www2.politicalbetting.com/index.php/archives/2007/12/17/why-labour-under-brown-is-certain-to-lose/
???
54. “I think we can be prety sure that the total of BNP + UKIP + Green MPs after the GE will be zero”
I don’t think we can be remotely sure of that. The Greens are favourites in Brighton Pav for a start, and if the polls and nature of the campaign so far are indicative, probably rightly so. UKIP I don’t see getting close to a seat, the BNP I do see getting close-ish but not winning.
In any case, the problem is not this election but the three to five years afterwards. The public is still enjoying the high of £3k per person per year of borrowed money the government’s throwing at them. Take that (or a good deal of it) away and their mood will change.
55.
I think somewhere between ICM and ARS
I would say Labour 28 Con 42.5 on GE day
ICM last was 31
ARS last was 26
ICM though just like others tend to overstate Labour, Im sticking with the above prediction’
Sutil shocks to top P1, and Kubica is surprisingly quick in 3rd for Renault.
I’m more surprised by Kubica than Sutil. I think the car must be damned light. Alonso 2nd, Massa 4th, McLaren 5th and 6th.
The highly variable fuel weight from testing continues here, so there’s a limit to the usefulness of this data. Also have to remember that Rosberg and Nakajima regularly topped practice sessions for Williams last year, but it didn’t do them much good come qualifying and race day.
The same pollster should have consstent weighting btwwen polls.So it is worth looking at the trend.AR since October has shown the Tories on 40%(6 out of 9 polls and latest poll.Over the same period Labour have moved from 23 to 26% nad the lib dems from 20 to 18% so there has been a small swing from Lib to lab,
In terms of actual forecasting results others are at 16%.If 10% is where final others figure sits there is 6% to re allocate.If we give 2% to each of the main aprtie sthen the result will be Con 425,Lab 28,lib 20-and give or take a % thts where i think the GE will finish.
RE Scottish sub samples.A complete waste of time making any claims on such small samples.The only Scottish figires worth looking at are those with proper samples over 1000.
test - change of ISP
65 Con 425% sounds good to me!
53. Bzzt - we have a winner.
Much respect to you Mike, for admitting that Angus Reid are likely to be as wrong as YouGov. I had expected you to be backing AR to the hilt. My sincere apologies for mis-judging you.
The post put up by financier at 28 refers to what could well be the most important factor in this election imho. These strining Unions appear to be coming out of the woodwork at a very unfortunate time for Labour, although conversely, if Brown handled them in a Thatcherite manner, it could play in Labour’s favour. However it is unlikely that Labour will be rushing to bite the hamd that feeds it.
On a related note, is it possible that the Civil Service Unions could time a strike to threeaten the smooth running of the GE?
Morning folks, I’ve put up a new pb2 piece on Welsh seats :
http://politicalbetting.blogspot.com/2010/03/welsh-seats-theres-gold-in-them-thar.html
I’ve analysed them by swing and odds, as previously done with Scottish seats. The seat pricing is moving fast in Wales, so this piece is already a bit out of date - the underlying analysis still stands though.
58 Patrick, I don’t know if that is right. Liam Byrne’s intevention yesterday is a pretty clear indication that Labour is going for the “doublethink” strategy with the budget: “we are doing more than anyone else to cut the deficit but it won’t cost anyone a penny more and all services will remain the same”. It’s incredible and there is a good chance the informed media and blogosphere will tear it to shreds, but I have some doubt whether that will filter through to the electorate. I sense a growing feeling that things haven’t been as bad as they could have been (which is probably right) and a willingness to believe an optimistic message that things will turn out OK. People really don’t like taking bitter medicine.
68 strining = striking!
53 Bunnco.
What you say rings true in my case. Back in 1997 I detested the Conservatives and voted for Blair and Labour. Didn’t need to vote in 2001 as I knew Labour would win. Voted for Labour again in 2005 primarily because Michael Howard reminded me too much of Thatcher and the sleaze-bag Tory party.
But 5 years on I’ve done a 180 degree turn and now can’t abide Brown with his spin, lies and deceit.
So for the first time ever, I will be voting for the Conservatives and Cameron this year.
Revealing comment from RodC:
“Labour lower than 1983?
Doesn’t pass the smell test to me…
Shy Labour syndrome.”
Labour are definately doing much worse in WWC areas now than they did in 1983. I don’t think many middle class leftists are yet aware of this though.
And Labour were at 21% and 16% in the 2009 elections.
Mike that is all fine and dandy but since YouGov is trying to create the narrative with its daily polls, the questionable invention of Labour Disloyal is skewing the YouGov results. There is a whale of a difference between weighting at 26% and weighting at 32%.
Hundreds of individuals are betting thousands of pounds on the basis of these polls and YouGov owes it to those depending on it applying an open and clear reasoning for its numbers to make that reasoning clear.
Peter Kellner’s blank refusal to explain the invention of Labour Disloyal last week has concerned PBers across the political spectrum and it is time YouGov wakened up and smelt the coffee. Many of us used to have a great deal of respect for YouGov and faith in its polls. For many of us that has simply gone.
Incidentally am I the only PBer who last night was suspicious that Ash seemed to be questioning anyone who criticised YouGov and in a quite threatening manner.
53 & 56 Bunnco & Wayne - “And it makes the shock they are going to get on GE day even more exciting!”
Agreed.
Long may the ‘Labour Fightback’ narrative continue. Cos when they do get wiped out at the GE, it will be like getting smashed in the puss with a sledgehammer.
The word “Ouch!” does not quite describe the crippling, life-changing blow that the Labour Mafia are about to recieve.
And “Tee hee!” will be nowehere near adequate to describe my glee.
8 Mike that’s easy, we will immediately go into General Election Mark II mode with Holyrood due next May.
8
The first Bye Election.
I wonder what the age distribution of Parliament will be?
Is there an actuary in the house?
Just think, in 8 weeks time, we’ll know exactly which pollsters were right, and which were wrong.
I’m having a crisis of faith now, not in yougov, or the Tories, but in my Lib Dem positions.
With both yougov and ARS both have them in the low teens, the Lib Dems aren’t going to around 55 MP’s are they?
74, I thought Mr. Kellner did (at the very least partially) explain the idea behind the Disloyal category.
He asserted, I think, that there was a sub-block of the Labour vote that behaved significantly differently to the main Labour leaning voter block, and that it made sense for such a split.
I did press him as to whether this was an English/Welsh phenomenon as the Disloyal category is absent from Scottish YouGov polls, but sadly he didn’t reply.
74.
Hear hear Easterross. At least we have something to have a laugh at, at 10pm every night!
I wish that ALL polls would have a highest/lowest % gap column added to each set of figures that they have produced and for each campaign they do. Indeed, I believe this should be mandatory for the publishing of all polls.
The media narrative has seen the Tories lead narrowing to 2% and is taken as this is gospel. We won’t (quite rightly too) see the papers saying Labour’s resurgence is over as the Conservatives extend lead to 13%.
I’m happy to accept YouGov’s assertion that they had the gap down to 2%, but deeply disturbed that the media using apples and pears to create an illusion of movement in public mood as fact.
In their own camp, each pollster believe their findings are right, but each needs to be reported in comparison to their own previous results. I’m happy to use both YouGov or Angus Reid to make my judgements into how the mood of the nation is being reported, but I cannot see how balanced reporting can be ensured under the current system.
75. Long may the ‘Labour Fightback’ narrative continue. Cos when they do get wiped out at the GE, it will be like getting smashed in the puss with a sledgehammer.
And when the Tories fail to win this time round, I hope they do the honourable thing and splinter into the irrelevance they have become.
75, Mr. Dickson, being as conservative (small C
) as you can, what’s the most realistic outcome for Scotland regarding Labour and SNP seats and the gains/losses that will be made come the GE?
78, 55 is a little bullish. Erm. I’d lay Julia Goldsworthy, but I’m afraid I have no advice to offer regarding betting.
OK so YouGov vs AR says to me only that polls are b0llox
Common sense says that people will not vote Brown back in because he has been beyond appalling, they will vote for anyone BUT Labour.
Surely..??!
Re: Labours “doublethink”, we saw it with the Death Tax.
Labour flatly deny it and attack the Tories, then a few weeks later when the story has died down and the issue diffused, they annonce the previously denied policy, and the media don’t bat an eyelid as it’s “old news”
Just what policies do Labour have, beyond bare-faced Goebelesque lies?
The problem with such extensive polling as we are seeing, and it will only get worse going forward, is that you end up not being able to see the woods for the trees. Clearly I think even fanatical Labourists must know that the gap is not 3, not that they will admit it prior to the election. In the same vein fanatical Conservatives know that the lead has dropped back a little, from the double digits.
My own premise is that there is an embedding value of leads, by that I mean that the longer a party is in a good position the better that good position is. Put another way, the more a poll respondant gets used to saying one answer the more comfortable they will become with their new answer. That leads me to summise that having led in the polls for most of the past 5 years and had election winning leads for much of it that that isn’t going to be overturned in a few months.
53 An excellent interpretation, Bunnco. How long before the “Labour disloyal” gets, er “modified” away?
Of course, the day they do, we will see a Labour “slump” and LibDems “surge” meme for the media to play with. Perhaps a day or two after the Budget? Then we can have the media wheel out their new meme in the run up to the election: “Could Labour really finish third?”
I see betfair NOM was unmoved by last nights shenanigans.
I see no way out of this situation - yougov cannot swingback from Labour unless they find more Labour identifiers who can be bothered to poll.
With all the analysis of weighting between the pollsters something seems to have been forgotten: Angus Reids latest poll has 17% for ‘others’!!. This is surely untenable. At the last election with it’s apathetic turn out and lack of tension,then surely BNP, UKIP and the Greens, all relatively well organised, would have benefited somewhat, but what was the ‘others percentage? LESS THAN 8%!!
This is by definition a much closer and potentially government changing election which people know makes their votes (at least in the marginals) more significant.
I would be fascinated to see a spread on the the percentage for others - I bet 9% would be smack in the middle.
This surely makes any micro analysis meaningless, doesn’t it?
70
Everything Byrne said (and the support he received) were couched in terms that could easily be dismissed after the GE.
On the other hand does Brown really believe that the deficit can be rectified solely by cuts (of course, not mentioning the increase in NI - a tax by any other name. And while we’re on the point, does one rise in NI (now officially an Un-Tax) herald further rises later)?
85. Is it even relevant as to what policies they say they have?
After the referendum “promise” I will never believe in any policy that Labour puts out in it’s manifesto anyway.
This has, thus far, been a really excellent thread. Lots of really sensible and intelligent thinking conducted in a good humoured way. There are two reasons for it, IMHO. First, some first rate posters and posts. Second, no trolls. I wish it was always like this.
On topic: I was one of the ‘Blair Conservatives’ who voted Labour from 1997 to 2005, though with increasing disenchantment. Nothing on earth, however, would make me consider voting for Brown. But nothing. It remains my conviction, first expressed on this site a long time ago, that the man is ill and is currently as functional as he is only because he’s now on the right medication.
90, quite. But don’t forget Labour broke the promise not to raise income tax, and the promise not to introduce tuition fees.
53:Very good point. In addition when looking at polls, YouGov may have been good in 2001, 2005, but those were, in most accounts, ‘as you were’ elections which little seachange in the elections.
The key point, as bunnco points out, is the ‘natural-middle’ which have been the ones which voted Blair (rather than labour per se), attracted in 1997, 2001 and 2005, and which now will go tory, or stay at home.
Those are the ones which YouGov are identifing as ’strong/loyal labour’. which are no longer, and which, suprise suprise, don’t ID themselves as being. This would also explain the undersampling of labour we’ve seen in their polling.
For me, this is the clearest reason why YouGov are overstating labour via their weighting. No bias, or conspiracy, just that the underlying electorate has changed, and the algorithmns aren’t able to pick it up.
I wonder if we’ll get another TNS/BRMB poll today?
85. Just what policies do Labour have, beyond bare-faced Goebelesque lies?
One is left thinking exactly the same thing about the Tories.
Although one understands the coyness of that Consveratives on that score given the complete battering the Tories have rightly received on their blinkered ideologically driven policy prgramme since the turn of the year (hence the plummeting poll lead).
Loving the shambles that is the Tory education policy!
65. rogerh - “The only Scottish figires worth looking at are those with proper samples over 1000.”
It is precisely those polls where YouGov is weighting LAB : SNP at a ratio of 2.5 : 1
Madness.
paulwaugh
David Miliband just walked into LBC’s Nick Ferrari Q on election date. Effectively confirmed May 6.
Does everyone remember when Caroline Flint yesterday saying she had to repay “about £100″ for a washing machine on Question Time yesterday?
According to this
http://www.yorkshirepost.co.uk/mp/In-full-How-much-your.6044784.jp
she repaid £734.15.
63! If that is true, then YouGov should be finished as polling organization. The problem I have is that the POLLS do change political narrative and I’m suspicious of YouGov… However, 42.5 to 28 is far too big. I’ve often written about (and been dismissed) the dependency effect - those that want change on many issues but ulimately fear change may adversely affect their material well-being… and with many on benefits and with over an extra 1m in the public sector, I cannot see Labour below 30%. My feeling is 40 CON to 31.5 LAB.
As I suggested a few nights ago, perhaps in relation to political polling the BPC should negotiate with the member organisations a standard form of weighting to be applied to all polls.
Each polling company could then release its preferred numbers, the BPC model numbers and the unweighted numbers.
We would then be able to compare each polling company with one another in relation to the BPC model and come election day look to which company’s preferred model best matches the actual result and indeed if the BPC model has worked as well. At least this would give us a “standard” against which to judge every poll from every pollster. Right now there are so many different systems in play that it is like trying to pick the correct apple from all the trees in a mixed orchard.
Having been polite about Mr Kellner above it just struck me that his inability to answer the actual questions put to him on here the other day but instead to tell us something else. It may just be a Labour party habit that Brown is the Leader in? Called dissembling.
78. TSE, I would hold on to your LabDem positions, at least until a few days after the budget, anyway.
I can see Labour disintegrating in the polls following the budget and although the Conservatives will obviously be the main beneficiary, the LabDems should pick up a few points too.
Alistair Darling will use the pre-election Budget to insist that Labour can halve Britain’s £178 billion deficit without any new tax rises.
The Chancellor will use his statement later this month to say that he has no need to raise extra cash to meet his central economic pledge. Mr Darling has already announced £19 billion of tax rises to come in this year and next, including a new 50p rate of income tax and national insurance rises for workers and employers.
Liam Byrne, his deputy, said yesterday that there was no need for more. “No, we have set out exactly how we will find that £19 billion,” he told Andrew Neil on the BBC Two Daily Politics programme.
Asked if there was, therefore, no need to raise VAT towards 20 per cent, the Chief Secretary to the Treasury said: “We don’t see a need to do that because we have made some difficult decisions about national insurance contributions.”
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/politics/article7059121.ece
105, be interesting to see Clegg’s response to the Budget. I wonder if he’ll spend more time attacking the Government for racking up a trillion pounds of debt, or the Conservatives for not agreeing with Saint Vince.
106 - I don’t see that that modest tax hikes they have announced are going to add up £19bn or anything like it. I suspect that they are seriously overestimating the return from the 50p rate
108, the 50p rate might well be a net loss.
I suspect Labour will claim fantasy growth forecasts will fill the gap. Is it 3% Darling reckoned we’d get in 2011?
Does anyone know when we are expecting to find out if Baroness Uddin is being prosecuted?
83. Morris Dancer
I have a pretty good idea of where the Scottish parties stand relative to each other in terms of national vote share. However, when it comes to predicting seats, you may as well throw Baxter and UNS out the window.
It could be anything from a “No Change” election (antifrank’s position) to Easterross’s modest (and perfectly reasonable) proposals, to Salmond’s 20 seats (I have always considered that a tad unlikely, ever since the day he said it), right through to a stunning SNP landslide and taking our seat at the UN later this year (loooooong odds, but it could just happen).
Problem is, no-one has the in-depth knowledge in the 59 individual seats to come up with reasonable predictions.
All I know is that the SLABers are filling their breeks in all kinds of unlikely constituencies. That is a thoroughly welcome development.
95. The people of Sweden might disagree - they love it. Also the pupils and parents of the ever increasing number of failing schools might disagree
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/education/7376938/Failing-schools-double-under-Ofsted-reforms.html
Also business is less than impressed
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/education/educationnews/7411453/Tesco-director-British-school-leavers-cant-read-or-write-and-have-attitude-problems.html
RE: 106
And Darling will also announce that he’s solved global warming, ushered in World Peace and that additional Labour investment in Health has lead to a cure for cancer.
Sounds like Alistair Darling gets to deliver John Smith’s 1992 shadow budget.
110 - Something like that.
112, so, although predicting is hard, you’re saying the range of realistic possibilities is from no change to an (admittedly unlikely) great SNP landslide?
107. No direct tax rises perhaps, but watch out for all the Duty rises.
107 Scott P
well he better have his sums right, increasingly the credit rating agencies are putting down markers for the UK to cut both deficit and debt.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/economics/7423138/Europes-banks-brace-for-UK-debt-crisis.html
108
couple that to the fact that his ‘Central Economic Pledge’ is already fantasy…
(Labour have form. They set a target. They work toward the target. They announce the target is achieved. Usually the target is utterly divorced from reality)
If these interesting speculations about the Blair-natural-middle-conservatives are correct, then I hope that after the election Heffer, Fraser, Tebbit, Brogan etc and some of the wobblers here queue up to acknowledge that Cameron is a political tactical genius.
113. The Ghost of Harry Flashman - “The people of Sweden might disagree - they love it. Also the pupils and parents of the ever increasing number of failing schools might disagree”
Even Mike Russell, the Cabinet Secretary for Education and Lifelong Learning, is travelling to Sweden next week on a fact-finding mission:
http://news.scotsman.com/education/Minister-criticised-over-Swedish-.6146450.jp
Government view I agree with:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/education/8563044.stm
Teachers who belong to the BNP won’t be barred from teaching.
120 should be for 109.
110 That’s the one…
117. MD
Yeah.
Not very useful to punters, I know, but I honestly don’t have a clue how the seat distribution is going to look. Easterross probably has the best case I’ve seen so far, but I must say that I do doubt a few of his individual seat assessments.
122. Sounds like he is in “disarry” too (c) Ben10.
123: Good. As distastful as the BNP is, they are still a legal democractic political party. Workers have (generally) the right to expression of political views. (special cases in police apply I know).
Perhaps someone should start quoting odds as to how long it’ll take the Sun to dump Yougov.
All this does is bring political polling into disrepute. If all of these polls stuffed to the eyeballs with statisticians and political experts can’t bring out figures that are even remotely similar, then cynicism will triumph: as if it hasn’t already.
Pollsters will be joining those other bodies that are similarly derided: politicians, journalists and economists, in the public’s eyes.
Perhaps its time to look again at Astrology, well could it do any worse? Get out Brown, Cameron, and Cleggs charts, its gotta be worth a try.
125, is there a Scottish equivalent of Balls? (Ie loathsome individual in a supposedly safe seat who might just get kicked out).
Obviously, Brown losing his seat would be hilarious but it’s not going to happen.
‘Ponderous Labour bureaucracy makes a mess of East Lothian’
http://politics.caledonianmercury.com/2010/03/11/ponderous-labour-bureaucracy-makes-a-mess-of-east-lothian/
Note: you can get LIBDEM at 16/1 in East Lothian, over a Paddy Power.
129. Jim Murphy ?
[Bunnco] - YouGov has a long history on all it’s panel….So, my explanation for YouGov is that they are hamstrung by their history. They have understandably but mistakenly classified too many of the 1997-2005 Blair voters as Labour Loyal, when they’re not.
I don’t follow this part of your reasoning.
If we postulate that there are a large number of “Blair’s Tories” who voted Labour 1997-2005, but are now switching to the Tories to oust Brown, then YouGov should pick this up. They will be able to correctly identify these people - due to their history - as former Labour loyal voters who have now switched to the Tories.
The only exception would be if these voters were so ashamed of having ever been duped to vote Labour that they now tell YouGov that they previously voted Tory… but I would think YouGov’s history on the members of their panel would prevent this?
110. 108, the 50p rate might well be a net loss.
Guff. In the same way the Right kept harping how the one off bankers bonus tax was supposed to cost more than it raised?
“Supertax pulls in £2.5bn for UK Treasury”
http://tinyurl.com/yf4o8yu
And the Right was wrong about the numbers of selfish bankers who might want to up sticks and leave the UK too!
http://www.thefirstpost.co.uk/60628,business,london-bankers-halt-the-great-escape-to-geneva
According to Terry Smith, chief executive of Tullett Prebon, far fewer brokers than expected have sought posts in less tax-onerous jurisdictions like Geneva or Singapore.
128. coldstone - I agree - this makes betting on a national level more risky - I’m concentrating on individual seats for now.
Perhaps this is the polling tool of the future ?
http://img194.imageshack.us/i/divining.jpg/
129 MD
wait for Holyrood; maybe George Foulkes could fit the bill
Morning All,
Naturally, I fully agree with Mike seeing as I have been banging on about Yougov’s weightings and about the BSAS Survey and sea changes in the nations Party identification for weeks now.
Now going back to that BSAS survey on Party ID (Con 32 Lab 25 LD 9)which for the first time since 1989 suggested that the country now viewed itself as Conservative and Labour had far fewer people willing to identify with it.
Now if you take a look at the unweighted numbers from Yougov and Angus Reid polls you will find that almost all those currently being produced suggest that there has been the same sort of shift in party identification where the parties are anything from neck and neck to the Conservatives being significantly ahead in terms of Party ID. What is not apparent is the samples ever come anywhere close to fulfilling the Yougov view of Party ID of Con 26 Lab 32 LD 12.
Now when I mentioned this to Andy from Angus Reid he confirmed that if there had been a sea change in Party ID allegiances as BSAS purports then pollsters using past vote weightings would not be affected but potentially pollsters using Party ID Weighting could be. However, Peter Kellner and Anthony Wells whilst trying to provide an explanation have yet to confirm how they can be sure their Party ID weighting are still valid and how they might prove it is valid (I suspect they can’t without a General Election).
From what I can see the Yougov weightings are out of sync and are potentially out of sync probably up to about 15 points in Labours favour (based on the premise that there could be 200 more Conservative identifiers than Labour in a specific poll). Now how this might translate into headline figures is difficult to say because just because someone identified most of the time with a party several years ago doesn’t mean they will choose them in a poll now.
Ironically back in the day when those of a red preference complained on here about the Yougov lead might well have been right because from the modelling I’ve done using Party ID as Yougov has would have a pendular effect. If Labour became more identified with than the weighting suggested then the weightings would benefit the Conservatives.
Yougov really need to explain how they administer that Party ID weighting because from what we have (or have not been told) unless they validate and update the weighting on a regular basis it is at risk of becoming severely out of step IMO…..
On another consideration how long does it take for a Labour disloyal to stop being a Labour disloyal and become a Libdem or a UKIP supporter or something else?
Is it the case that Yougov never ask their panel to review and update their profile?
Morning all.
Time to go back to first principles.
Clearly pollsters have to try to get a representative sample. The easy bit is to ensure the sample matches the profile of the voting population in terms of age, sex, class, region, newspaper readership, etc. At first sight, that should be enough.
But it is known not to be enough (eg 1992), so in addition pollsters try to ensure they don’t include in their headline figures too many of one type of voter, where ‘type’ here means political leaning. AR do so by the simple method of weighting to 2005 vote. That has the great merit of being, in principle at least, based on fact, not opinion. But it has two problems: firstly some people didn’t vote last time, but will this time, and secondly people are known to mis-remember how they voted.
YouGov try to get round this by the weighting to ‘party ID’, i.e. ensuring they have enough ‘people who identify with Labour’ in their samples. They have also added this new category of ‘people who identify with Labour but didn’t vote Labour in 2005′. It seems to me that the trouble with their approach is that it is a bit of a circular argument.
There’s an additional issue which hasn’t received much attention. Whilst I don’t often agree with Mark Senior, he does have a point when he points to the oddity of YouGov’s weighting in respect of LibDems. Maybe this is because 2005 LibDem voters, or LibDem voters in general, don’t necessarily ‘identify’ with the party; but again this is a subjective judgement (and it perhaps also applies to the Tories). In the end, we’re interested in which parties people vote for, not their emotional attachment to the parties they vote for.
Punters will have to make their own judgement on this. Personally I agree with Mike that YouGov’s methodology is probably overstating Labour and understating the LibDems, and that AR is understating Labour. YouGov may also exaggerate short-term movements in sentiment (because they don’t weight by certainty to vote) - that is useful in itself, of course, but perhaps needs to be considered when extrapolating to May 6th.
99.Good morning Benboy.Do you love the shambles that is being turned out of school at the moment.After thirteen years of labours magnificent dumb down policy I havent been able to employ any of them for years..
129. MD - “is there a Scottish equivalent of Balls? (Ie loathsome individual in a supposedly safe seat who might just get kicked out).”
Yepp.
His name is Skeletor, and he is very, very scary. Here he is with the peasant who empties his chamber pot:
http://i.telegraph.co.uk/telegraph/multimedia/archive/01510/Jim_Murphy_1510320c.jpg
Iain Gray is Baldrick to Jim Murphy’s Blackadder.
135, Foulkes is a [MODERATED] son of a [MODERATED] who [MODERATED] with several [MODERATED] every [MODERATED] and deserves to be thoroughly [MODERATED] with an enormo-haddock.
52 - Interesting perspective, but you are missing another group. These are the loyal labour voters who did not vote or voted for another party in 2005 because of the Iraq war. And there are plenty of them. Canvassing in 2005 I had the same conversation time after time on the doorstep. ‘I have always voted Labour, but I wont do so again while Blair remains in charge because of the war’.
These people focussed specifically on Blair. Also this was very much a ’safe’ protest position, because they were clear that their protest was only possible because Labour were going to win anyway - had 2005 been neck and neck, a substantial proportion of these people would have come out, held their nose and voted Labour. A substantial proportion of these people will be back in the Labour hold this time because, firstly Blair has gone, secondly they have had their opportunity to make their anti-war protest and finally, most importantly, because failing to vote Labour this time could result in a Tory government, and that is the very last thing this block of people want.
Now I’m not sure how polling can deal with both the Blair conservatives that Buncco identifies and also the loyal Labour anti-Blair’s war non-labour 2005 voting block I have described. I suspect it is very difficult because so much has altered since 2005, and that election was very unusual, because of the Iraq war backdrop. Thus weighing that relies on 2005 voting/recall may be highly problematic. Whether this results in too much Labour support or too little Labour support we will only know after the election - but some polling firms are certainly going to get it very, very wrong unless there is a level of convergence in the next month or so.
139, unfair, surely. I like Blackadder. And Skeletor.
One shudders to think who in the Labour array of numpties are considered to be Fisto and Ram Man.
54 .Having re read Bunco’s ever lengthening post it occurs to me that if Yougov is misclassifying people as ‘Labour loyal’ who were in fact ‘Blair loyal’ but now intend to vote Cameron surely the effect would be the opposite of what he suggests? It would depress the Labour showing.
Roger. ‘Your Man with a spot’.
PS Yesterday’s chanting by the Tory claque ‘Smithson, Smithson show us your ARS……’ has no place on a sophisticated site.
Has Brown done any interviews today? Or yesterday?
Forget the actuary - is there an SNP-er in the house?
What is this?
http://www.alba.org.uk/devolution/claimofright.html
And more importantly, did Brown sign it?
http://www.opendemocracy.net/blog/ourkingdom-theme/tom-griffin/2008/08/29/brown-must-recognise-englands-claim-of-right
At last a candidate SeanT can vote for.
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/politics/article7059208.ece
Does that mean its no longer, ‘Disgusted of Tunbridge Wells’ but, ‘Disgusting of Tunbridge Wells’?
Jokes about Whips in parliament etc, will be moderated as they are just too easy.
138.
The UK education system remains one of the pre-eminent in the world. It could always work better of course, but that requires an holistic approach, including huge investment and planning, which the Tories’ - frankly laughable - plans to allow non expert parents to set up their schools deliberately avoids (ie. Tories trying yet again to do stuff on the cheap so they can tax their rich buddies a little bit less).
The Tory plans are a massive gimmick in a very serious policy area. Like much of their published programme so far in fact. Which is why their poll lead has disappeared.
142. MD
Murphy is an interesting character. In the same way that many serial killers are “interesting characters”. I wouldn’t like to meet him in a dark alleyway.
George Foulkes is probably the most detested politician in Scotland. I can’t think of anyone else who even comes close.
What is the sound of BenM w*nking off to his stained copy of Das Kapital?
147. So you dont travel much Benboy….I do…you are so deluded its unbelievable..
147 BenM
go read the PISA studies, I just can’t be arsed educating you again, it’s like trying to explain fire to a goldfish.
141: Those are who lYouGov are trying to measure using the ‘disloyal’ labour segment however. People which identify with labour, but didn’t vote for them in 2005.
145. bono publico
Yes. Both Gordon Brown and Alistair Darling signed the Claim of Right for Scotland:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Claim_of_Right_1989
132
Timothy zebra
<i don’t follow this part of your reasoning.
If we postulate that there are a large number of “Blair’s Tories” who voted Labour 1997-2005, but are now switching to the Tories to oust Brown, then YouGov should pick this up. They will be able to correctly identify these people - due to their history - as former Labour loyal voters who have now switched to the Tories.
The only exception would be if these voters were so ashamed of having ever been duped to vote Labour that they now tell YouGov that they previously voted Tory… but I would think YouGov’s history on the members of their panel would prevent this?
YouGov’s panelists’ numbers have soared in recent years..
I suspect some of them tell porkie pies.. (I know I do)
BenM is a typical product of the great British education system..
128. Perhaps someone should start quoting odds as to how long it’ll take the Sun to dump Yougov.
Well they are keeping the page on the website going but they don’t seem to be making a big deal about it (and Anthony Wells made todays comments not Kellner). Could it be that it is being pushed into the background?
Thing is from what I can see unless there is a big surge in Labour identifiers filling in polls (or Yougov change their Party ID weighting or switch to past vote, neither of which is likely) it aint going to change much. The only other potential way out of it is to switch to weekly or bi-weekly polls. Perhaps that is News International’s way out?
It’s not good for Yougov because I suspect this will prove worse than the Mori and Comres failures in recent times.
Oh dear, oh dear, oh dear.
‘Resign now, MP Anne told’
http://www.eastlothiancourier.com/news/roundup/articles/2010/03/11/398021-resign-now-mp-anne-told/
Bookies’ best odds - East Lothian
Lab 1/3 (Lad)
SNP 7/2 (PP)
Con 14/1 (PP)
LD 16/1 (PP)
143: Not really Roger, becuase they don’t identify with Labour when they tell YouGov, they won’t be included in the labour segment. Therefore this naturally decreases labour ID’s in the polling, and increase the need for weighting up the labour figure.
This is the differnce between ‘voted for labour in 2005′ and ‘identify with labour’, so people which voted for labour in 2005, no longer since them identify with them, hence the ‘missing Labour identifiers’. IE its changed since 2005.
155. He’s like tim after his iq has been weighted by yougov.
I see the PB/ARS poll is getting good coverage in the US
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/03/12/AR2010031200835.html
Perhaps a stupid Q - did Yougov use the same technique as today when polling London Mayoral election?
If so, I’d be more willing to give them credit, not least because my own team spent so much effort trying to show how useless yougov were, only to end up with egg on our faces.
33 Floater - More of those wealthy mates of Cameron talking down Britain:
“I am becoming convinced that Great Britain is the next country that is going to be pummelled by investors,” said Kornelius Purps, Unicredit’s fixed income director and a leading analyst in Germany.
Mr Purps said the UK had been cushioned at first by low debt levels but the pace of deterioration has been so extreme that the country can no longer count on market tolerance.
“Britain’s AAA-rating is highly at risk. The budget deficit is huge at 13pc of GDP and investors are not happy. The outgoing government is inactive due to the election. There will have to be absolute cuts in public salaries or pay, but nobody is talking about that,” he told The Daily Telegraph.
Nothing to see here, of course. We shouldn’t let a cabal of old Etonians blackmail the electorate into voting Conservative.
161: No, they’ve changed their selection procedures for polls.
Ref Byrne and the deficit.
Labour’s quite astonishing achievement is in having established halving the deficit within five years as the public benchmark for success in deficit reduction.
Getting the deficit down to £90bn pa would still leave it at around the level it was when Healey went to the IMF. It is very probable that given four or five years of even modest growth, the cyclical improvements will reduce the deficit to that level so on that basis Byrne is probably correct to say that they could achieve their objectives without raising taxes or cutting spending.
The problem lies with the objective, which tolerates an utterly unsustainable structural deficit.
Does anyone know what the lowest Tory lead has been in any national poll other than YouGov since that start of the New Year?
Justine Greening on QT last night came across as the sort of plain speaking non-posh type of Tory who should be given a higher profile.
152 - Yes that’s right and YouGov are certainly attempting to address the 2005 non-labour voting anti war block. Whether that results in Labour values that are too high we will only know after the election. Peter Kellner lives just a couple a streets away from me, so he will definitely be aware of this effect in his locality. Indeed it can be argued that the anti-war vote turned my constituency blue from red in 2005, as the Tories won with just a tiny increase in their vote from 2001 levels because Labour lost about 4000 votes and the Lib Dems picked up almost exactly the same number.
Are any of the other polling organsitions specifically trying to address this issue?
Good job Gordo has seen us through the recession…
House purchase loans fell by more than three times the decline in remortgages in January, according to data released today by the Council of Mortgage Lenders. This emphatically demonstrates the effect on the mortgage market from the end of the temporary stamp duty holiday in December.
There were 49% fewer house purchase loans in January than in December but only 15% fewer remortgage loans. However, the 32,000 loans for house purchase, worth £4.7 billion, were up from the low of 23,000 (worth £3.1 billion) seen in January 2009. Conversely, the 24,000 loans for remortgage, worth £3 billion, were down from 45,000 (£6.2 billion) a year ago. This is the lowest monthly level of remortgage activity - both by number and value - in eight years of available data.
http://www.cml.org.uk/cml/media/press/2571
162: Things like that do make me wonder if both the tories and labour are both trying to lose the election to avoid dealing with it.
147 Ben Ill tell you an anecdote for what its worth ,as you are not here to listen and learn but rather to just provide nasty background noise, about the state of UK education - I am immigrant to this country - My English is pretty decent I had good grades at school in the Netherlands. However I never actually studied at the highest level and never went to university as a matter of fact I was a school dropout at the age of 17.
Now I must admit I have a knack for languages I just seem to pick them up so maybe its not completely fair. However if I am in a position that I need to explain to a smart 18 year ( e.g she will go to university and no not meeja studies ) old native speaker the meaning of certain words or have to explain general knowledge bits and pieces of her native countries History then it seems pretty obvious to me that something is seriously wrong with the standards of education.
161. Hopi
Looking back it seems they used past 1st preference vote:
http://www.yougov.co.uk/extranets/ygarchives/content/pdf/MayoralElections01Mayresults.pdf
So it would seem no they didn’t use the same methods……
I hadn’t realised that before. The plot thickens…..
132. The point is that YouGov increases Labour-loyal in the highlighted poll by 41pc and depresses Labour-disloyal by 14pc.
This illustrates the importance of the correct classification when converting the raw data to the headline figures.
I do acknowledge the comments above that there’s a suggestion that the misclassification should actually help the Tories by showing a Lab-Con swing that should, in turn, be magnified.
But that’s not happening and I suspect that this effect is being overwhelmed by too many of the Labour responses being boosted by 41pc.
To clarify one point… I”ve called labour disloyals ‘blair conservatives’. The Labour loyals might be characterised as ’socialists’ or ‘tribal labour’. Brown might call them the ‘core vote’.
I hope Roger’s spot clears-up. Witchazel is meant to be good.
(Difficult to respond as on blackberry and in a meeting)
165: BPIX have given a 2%, and ComRes a 5%
TNS have given a 5% (but lastest was 8%)
Mori=5% (back in 22nd Feb).
Theres no doubt the lead has tighted, but the polls which show the best were after Tear for Piers and bullygate, two weeks of which were ‘good’ for Brown.
170 jsfl and Hopi Sen, that is the mystery about Yougov. Having won the argument over the London Mayor polling why change their system of weighting? It makes no sense.
I still think AR is more likely to be right Labour are extremely unpopular and there has been little over the last 9 months or so to justify them being only 3% behind. How much would you get if you bet £10 on a 100+ majority?
I have said this before, there is a limit to how much science you can use when you are talking about a subjective issue like politics and the wholly erratic behaviour of the general public.
Less than half of voters see themselves as permanently allied to a political party these days, and although this is surely a great development for our democracy it makes any kind of political allegiance weighting very suspect.
I think YouGov are trying to be too clever with their weightings, but then I think most of the predictors and complex maths employed by interested and entirely well-meaning boffins on here is over the top as well.
For the majority these days how they will vote is no longer a practical decision based on facts and manifesto’s, or a tribal decision based on lifelong political allegiance (which is what opinion polls are good at establishing), but a slightly impulsive, emotional decision based on how they feel on the day.
I think that is why focus groups are increasingly relied on by the parties to establish how they are doing rather than by polls.
164.Labour’s quite astonishing achievement is in having established halving the deficit within five years as the public benchmark for success in deficit reduction.
Well that’s been helped along with the media “confusion” of deficit and debt
Reducing the debt by half sounds an admirable benchmark, borrowing half what we do on top of a mountain of debt, not so impressive (and as said this will occur anyway with no action as part of the economic cycle)
So as ever, it’s “investment” all the way for Labour
170 I thought I’d check the Euros as well and here they did use Party ID but they also used Likelihood to Vote which they don’t use in national polls.
http://www.yougov.co.uk/extranets/ygarchives/content/pdf/Voting%20table%2009%2006%2003.pdf
Of course in that poll they had a full compliment of Labour voters contributing.
Now it was at this time that Labour had all the turmoil over resignations and so forth and it was after that that the number of Labour contributors to the polls started to decline. Could the 16% Euro poll figure, the resignation/ sacking of a good proportion of the ministerial team and the fallout from the expenses scandal have been the trigger for the decline in Labour supporters?
It would appear that AR/PBC is getting credit for todays rising pound!
http://uk.news.yahoo.com/22/20100312/tuk-uk-britain-election-poll-fa6b408.html
178, pb.com = restoring the British economy
162 i can see this crisis of uncertainty getting worse nearer the election. Brown will leave with the country in chaos.
36-24
But is there not more afoot than that with YouGov and the Scottish samples.
Perhaps David can tell us why the Scottish Sun have not published its Scottish poll this week?
Could it be because even with the absurd poltical weightings so well identified by Stuart it is showing the SNP going up and the Tories faltering in the teens? Or are such decisions made on news value only? Over to David.
We now have Angus Reid, MORI (full poll), anfd ComRes all shjowing the NATS vote a) rising and b) in high 20s or low 30s. All show Labour in low to mid 30s. Only YouGov show something different and even there that NAT vote is rising.
To put this in context.
The balance of polls mean that the SNP vote is rising more than that of any other party - from 18% in 2005.
All polls (including YouGov) agree that the Tories and Libs are doing badly in Scotland.
David - is it too much to ask the Scottish Sun to publish your own poll even when it is inconvenient for the paper’s poltical narrative?
Stuart - will you ever get a sensible (or any) answer from YouGov about its nonsensical party weightings and identifiers in Scotland?
Funny how Labour never mention the succesful Charter Schools, championed by their beloved Obama, when attacking Conservative education policy, which also run on the Swedish model
174 - I think i understand why YouGov have done it.
They weren’t getting enough Labour respondents in the polls, and made a correction for this “shy labour voter” effect.
However, the adjustment IMHO is too much, but we’ll find out in 8 weeks time if yougov were right.
125. Stuart, Agree it is very hard to call since we do not really know what is going on as the media is so biased. It would get really interesting if the SNP get above 30%, thats when the seats would really start tumbling. Unfortunately they can get a big increase and not gain many seats.
151 BenM is really, really daft if he thinks British Education is much better than most other countries. This self satisfaction is doing our country in & it’s why Labour need to go.
Looking at yesterday’s YouGov figures, there may be something to Bunnco’s theory that they are under sampling Loyal “Blair” ID’s and then compounding this by weighting up the more “core” supporters who have responded.
e.g. The Labour Disloyal category was virtually spot on (87 to 88), whilst the Labour Loyal was weighted up by 47 from 336 to 383.
http://www.yougov.co.uk/extranets/ygarchives/content/pdf/TheSun-results_10.03-trackers.pdf
The net effect of this on Labour Voting Intention was an increase of 34 from 341 to 375.
This implies approx 70% (34/47) of the total reweighted up Labour Loyal ID sample who voted for them in 2005 say they will vote for them.
This figure is much higher than the ICM figures of 55% (pg 4)
http://www.icmresearch.co.uk/pdfs/2010_march_notw_poll.pdf
and Populus of 54% (pg 1)
http://populuslimited.com/uploads/download_pdf-070210-The-Times-The-Times-Poll—February-2010.pdf
and implies that the Loyal Labour ID sample that YouGov are getting is not fully representative of the 2005 Labour voting block. Previously when they “controlled” the sample they got round this, but now they are weighting up responses they receive, their sample may not be as representative as there are differing levels of response rate within the block, which understaes “dis-illusioned” Blair voters.
Unfortunately we can’t test this directly because YouGov do not breakdown VI by Party ID weighting, the only one they do not show, and I would therefore encourage them to do so as soon as possible so we can more easily compare how well Labour are holding onto their 2005 vore versus other pollsters.
It does not matter what YouGov state because Brown is finished.
If you saw Question time last night the two biggest responses from most of the ladies there was, that Brown lied, and the mother that said she had to buy new equipment for her 18 year old son who is going out soon to Afghanistan.
Labour you are finished.
179. I find it quite unbelievable that one poll can have such an effect. Are the markets more comfortable with AR than YG? It would appear so. More importantly I think it shows just how fragile our economy is and that it won’t take much to tip it into freefall!
173. TC
Thats the thing Yougov, from my rather belated understanding (based on what has been said on here) changed to Party ID after the 2005 GE. Certainly they have polls online prior to 2008 that use Party ID for national polls. Why they changed it, I don’t know (they came pretty close to the 2005 result after all)?
So the question would seem to be why did they move to past vote weighting for the London Mayorals? Presumably they had the Party Id preferences for their London panel? Perhaps they were concerned that people would vote differently from their expressed preference? Isn’t that what is happening now with the national polls (certainly with the labour disloyals a least)?
The more one scratches away at this the more dubious this Party ID weighting seems……
178 that Reuters article is worth millions to AR’s reputation.
The best move AR may have made in the UK, could have been deciding to work with this site.
Mike I hope you are talking to the 3 main election broadcasters about offering an AR/PB analysis service for election night? Failing that a tie in with R5 or Iain Dale’s LBC or Talksport might be worthwhile.
There are as I have said before 2 issies with Yougov .
The first is whether the figures they weight to are correct . This is a subjective topic and a matter of judgement for their critics to argue against and Yougov to defend .
The second is that their samples ALWATS oversample too many males over 55 too many respondents with a Conservative Party ID and too few with a LibDem Party ID and hence their weighting adjustments have a major change from pre weighted figures to post wrighted ones rather than being a bit of fine tuning . The simple answer to this IF their panel is so large and representative of the population of the country as a whole they should poll fewer males over 55 with a Conservative Party ID and more people with a LibDem party ID . The fact that they cannot do this would imply that their panel is nowhere near representative of the country as a whole . I have been making this point for a long time now even when many of those now critical of Yougov thought the sun shone out of Yougov’s a**e .
147 ‘The UK education system remains one of the pre-eminent in the world.’
That is one of the best spoof posts ever on pb.com
178. In reality, it would appear the rise in the pound is due mainly to the weakening dollar. The pound is virtually unchanged against the Euro, which has also seen a similar rise against the dollar today.
The weird thing about You Gov’ s methodology is if they got a sample with more past Labour supporters then the Tories would probably have a 10% lead.
Hmm it looks like the Lib Dem candidate with the somewhat interesting career may not be a Lib Dem at all.
http://iaindale.blogspot.com/2010/03/libdem-candidate-who-supports-labour.html
186.
Unfortunately we can’t test this directly because YouGov do not breakdown VI by Party ID weighting, the only one they do not show, and I would therefore encourage them to do so as soon as possible so we can more easily compare how well Labour are holding onto their 2005 vore versus other pollsters.
I totally agree that they provide both the unweighted and weighted figures. Alas IIRC Peter Kellner said during his visit here that they do not intend to change their presentation of data at all…..
O/T
It is really a shame for democracy when a discredited and tired government at the fag end of its term of office can pass scorched earth policies to poison the incoming administration. All this with the willing connivance of a majority of so called honourable members who are cutting and running and therefore have no responsibility for their actions.
Thanks for an excellent piece Mike. Just a quick comment - last night several people were concerned that the panel might be biased in terms of its membership. I see from these figures, that it was finding more Labour voters than Tory so had to down-weight them to fit it’s model. Interesting…
Brown: I only lie compulsively because I’m passionate
191 - Actually it’s not a spoof.
‘The UK education system remains one of the pre-eminent in the world.’
Is very true. Sadly for Labour, it’s the UK’s private education system that remains one of the pre-eminent in the world.
Hysteria hit a new high point this morning when currency hysterics met ARPO followers in an hallucenogenic clearing in the forest and proclaimed each side to be right and rational.
Interesting that Peter Kellner, who is responsible for the current Labour favouring YouGov poll statistics is married to Catherine Ashton who just happens to be nominated by Gordon Brown to be the EU High Representative of the Union for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy.
Absolutely no connection, of course!
194 - Lib Dem parliamentary candidate directs porn films and supports Labour? Vote Yellow Get Blue, or Vote Yellow Get Brown? It’s all terribly confusing.
194: Lib Dems get all the fun ones.
190. Which is a satisfactory explanation of what is going on. They are long established therefore their panel is ageing and drifting rightwards as people do as they age and therefore needs more and more weighting. So you get to the stage where it’s as if you want to know how much the average dog weighs, therefore you collect all the dogs and all the cats you can, do the weighing and then do some clever maths to weight the cats out of the data, rather than ust collecting dogs in the first place.
201. planetnokia, also interesting that Stephan Shakespeare, owner of much of YouGov, was a Conservative candidate and apparatchik who just happens to also own a leading anti-Cameron Tory website.
So is he fiddling the figures to make Cameron look bad? Or is he fiddling them to make the Conservatives look good, and Labour are actually on 40%? I think we should be told, or alternatively we should stop coming up with stupid theories.
202 (cont) - I suppose it depends on the content of the films, really.
Of course the Lib Dems have a rule that all candidates have to be LD members for at least 6 months of their party before being selected.
Was she just faking it? BJ4LDs!
133: Ben M - the effect of increased taxes is more nuanced than you might suppose.
First the bonus tax: firms have paid it but be in no doubt that everyone has received a lower bonus as a result and that means less spending money. Also because more tax rises are on the way, peoples are more likely to save than spend.
Second, the higher rate: of course people don’t up and leave at a moment’s notice. But firms have been moving business teams away from London and at the margin it’s been noticeable recently that of the people who have left my firm a number from other countries are leaving the firm to go to firms outside the UK. So while there may not be an immediate rush of English people rushing abroad, foreign nationals will think hard about coming here.
Third, people are waiting to see the results of the GE. People could live with a 50p tax rate if that was the limit but most think that if Labour got back in, tax rates would be significantly higher and that there would be loads of new taxes as well. How many then would decide that working here was no longer worth it? As it is a highly paid individual would be better off in Paris than London. Not a difficult choice frankly.
Finally, and the Left NEVER EVER understand this. It’s what you get for your taxes which counts: if we had high rates but really first class public services, excellent transport links etc, people would not be so resentful. But we don’t: we have First World taxes and Third World services. Transport in London is a disgrace by comparison with its rivals. Housing is expensive; the NHS is struggling and there are enough horror stories to make people wonder where the hell the money’s gone and now we have strikes by feather-bedded public servants who seem to think that the public services are there for their benefit and not to serve the public. We do not get value for our taxes.
Value for money: a concept unknown to the Left hence the mess we’re in.
202 Richard Timney: “Directs porn films? She’s got my vote”
202 - Vote Yellow. Do Laundry.
201. Omigod O rly O how clever of you to ferret out that arcane piece of information what a gamechanger honestly I had no idea should someone alert Mike Smithson?
Idiot cunning of the day award.
You Gov adjustments are massive 20%+ adjustment for Labour and 20%- for the Conservatives. AR are minor adjustments.
“it’s like trying to explain fire to a goldfish.”
I love that! Nice one.
Just ignore BenM, I feel much better now I do that. His every post reveals him to be a clueless chump
202 - Surely it’s
Vote Yellow, Get Laughed at?
205 No theories, just facts!
Of course Dave reads the polls to, and his response?
So now Samantha Cameron is to be let off the leash – or maybe dragged unwillingly out of the kennel – to play her part in the election race. “You are going to see a lot more of her on the campaign trail,” her husband told Alan Titchmarsh in a television interview on Wednesday, “so Britain get ready!” It was nice of David to warn us, but he really didn’t need to. It always seemed probable that the engaging Mrs Cameron would at some stage be press-ganged into political service; but as her husband’s lead in the polls began to shrink and the prospect of a hung parliament (or even, God forbid, of another Labour victory) started to loom ominously on the horizon, it became inevitable.
David Cameron must realise that his personal appeal to the electorate is in decline. Even his charm has begun to arouse suspicion. Could it be masking the fact that he is actually no more than a clever smoothie on the make? Could he be just a cynical “Tory boy” at heart? He knows he needs “humanising”, and the only person in a position to do this plausibly is his wife.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2010/mar/12/alexander-chancellor-sarah-brown-samantha-cameron
The strange thing is a tightening of the polls will actually help the Conservatives as more will be inclined to vote if they believe they have to, to keep Labour out. And if AR is right it may be that You Gov actually help the Conservatives to win the election.
I don’t think there’s any doubt that it’s down to (a) the weightings (b) YouGov not weighting for certainty to vote and (c) AR’s policy of disregarding false recall. (a) and (b) are the reasons the Tory lead is lower with YouGov than anyone else, and (c) is the reason Labour is lower with AR than anyone else.
However, as usual, comparing data as Mike has done turns up interesting stuff. We can (I think?) all agree that there is a group of Labour identifiers who voted LibDem in 2005 over Iraq, many of whom have now returned to Labour - this is why Labour is losing a chunk of its 2005 voters but is still not that far off the 2005 result.
YouGov categorises these as disloyal Labour and includes them in the sample. AR (if I understand their method correctly) categorises them as LibDems and, if they’ve already sampled enough LibDems to match the actual result, ignores them. This causes the AR result to be worse for Labour and better for the LibDems and IMO it is, in the current conditions, a methodological error. (I doubt if this applies to LibDem-held seats where the challenger is Tory.) Splitting the difference between YouGov and AR isn’t a solution if AR are just making a mistake.
In seat terms, I suspect YouGov understates the LibDem chances of holding their seats (so long as Clegg doesn’t drive Labour voters away with too much of the anti-Brown we’d-be-better-than-Thatcher stuff) but accurately shows the likely outcome in New Labour marginals if turnout is high. ICM and Populus are a better guide if turnout is low.
207 Did Anna Spam have a Lib Dem member for the required 6 months?
shurely schome mistake Ed?
194. Its rumoured she’s hoping for a ‘well hung parliament’
217 - I suspect what you will see is something akin to 1992 where the two main parties in contention come out in droves pusing up turnout generally.
208
prime example of a poster wasting their time talking to BenM! Cyclefree, save yourself a headhache and give up with him.
Althoguh i liked your post - I mainly agree, so maybe it wasn’t all wasted effort, others with a brain may also read it. Patricularly good point about high taxes and good services - tolerable in the main, which is why surveys tend to say people would be willing to pay more tax for good services.
Actually we have super-expensive (to the point we literally cannot afford them) but patchy services, and in education, services which fundamentally fail to do what they need to for all pupils.
MIKE,
Are ARS members of the BPC?
If so why are they not reported in the media, like all the others?
220 - I want to crack a gag involving Lembit Opik and Well Hung Parliament, but I don’t want to demean this sites high standards.
216 - I liked this line in the article, “There is no sign yet that Nick Clegg, the leader of the Liberal Democrats, will seek to exploit his wife Miriam in this way, which is perhaps not surprising, given that she is both Spanish and a Roman Catholic.”
The well known, time honoured hatred of John Bull types of Iberian Papists there. It’s a shame, as she could have rolled out the “I didn’t expect the Spanish Inquisition!” line whenever the questioning got tough. Also, she is easily the most attractive of the three (and presumably of the thirty).
If we didn’t have Political Parties or General Elections but hired Governments instead, would Gordon Brown and his team be re-hired on 6th May?
195 Its a shame as it’s VI by Party ID that would help give confidence in their figures - the other polling organisations are showing (roughly) that Labour have lost 1 in 4 of their 2005 voters (so losing 9 points off 36%) but gaining about 4.5 points back again from returnees. Nett figure of 2005 voters around 31.5%. There is little evidence in other polls that non-voters/new voters are breaking much differently from rest of those intending to vote.
A VIPA type assumptiion would be 39:31:18 on current polls based on shifts from 2005 - with YouGov polls generally within the MoE of that but generally biasing Cons below, Labour above. ARPO are outside of the MoE for Labour in that model - which makes me feel they are understating them.
The Lib Dem lady’s election manifesto on DVD maybe very popular.
Will she be knocking voters up in the traditional way?
BJ4KYLDs
Just seen this from A Wells:
“The make up of YouGov samples back in summer last year when there was a 16 or 17 point lead would still have been 26% “loyal Labour ID”, 6% “disloyal Labour ID” on average. The weighting makes no difference at all to the partisan make up of the sample, it just makes it more consistent (and to test that, we reweighted three weeks worth of polls using the new weights to find if it made any difference – in almost every case it didn’t).”
Just seen this from A Wells:
“The make up of YouGov samples back in summer last year when there was a 16 or 17 point lead would still have been 26% “loyal Labour ID”, 6% “disloyal Labour ID” on average. The weighting makes no difference at all to the partisan make up of the sample, it just makes it more consistent (and to test that, we reweighted three weeks worth of polls using the new weights to find if it made any difference – in almost every case it didn’t).”
226 - If Gordon and his Cabinet had been a board of a multinational there would have been a shareholders revolt long before now.
223, pretty sure ARS are in the BPC. They’re not reported because the media are shit.
226 Brown and his fellow directors would be up before the bench for false accounting.
The markets, they love Angus Reid
http://uk.reuters.com/article/idUKLDE62B0K220100312
“Sterling up vs dollar after latest election poll”
218. Nick Palmer
AR (if I understand their method correctly) categorises them as LibDems and, if they’ve already sampled enough LibDems to match the actual result, ignores them
I’m amazed that Angus Reid can get their loyal Libdem supporters to send in their returns before the disloyal Libdem supporters. They must be well trained!
Have you any evidence to support this purported phenomena? The idea that this would happen on a regular basis is absurd and therefore the rest of your theory is baseless.
Really Nick when are you and Labour going to give up these ‘pigs might fly’ theories? It only makes you look delusional.
199 - Are you seriously claimimg that the British education system in general is not one of the best in the world? It is nowhere near as good as it could or should be, but it is patently ridiculous to say that we are not among the best. Our universities are regularly rated as the leading ones in Europe and we have more in the top global 100 than any other country bar the US.
With regards to primary and secondary schools we remain in the upper reaches of all rankings - just not as high as we were before. That is more to do with other countries improving than with us going backwards.
None of which is an excuse for complacency or a reason not to be angry that there have been failures going back many decades in the way schools policy has been developed.
223. Wayne
Yep they were accepted a couple of months ago IIRC
lucymanning no charges for baroness uddin cps decide
236 - Our education system is outstanding at the top and mediocre at the middle and the bottom. It’s had this problem for decades and no party has come close to solving it.
228. TC
Perhaps Jacqui Smith’s hubbie would like it ?
218 Nick P - YouGov categorises these as disloyal Labour and includes them in the sample. AR (if I understand their method correctly) categorises them as LibDems and, if they’ve already sampled enough LibDems to match the actual result, ignores them.
I don’t think that is quite right. It doesn’t matter who these people are and what their motivation in voting LibDem was (i.e. what ‘party ID’ they have). What matters is whether AR are picking up the correct proportion of them from the population as a whole, and that in turn is in doubt only because of the problem of ‘false recall’. If we knew for certain that those who say they voted for each party actually did so, AR’s approach would always be the correct one (at least as regards people who did actually vote).
There is one proviso: if for some reason AR’s sample happened to pick up, amongst 2005 LibDem voters, disproportionate numbers of ‘Labour disloyal’ 2005 voters compared with ‘LibDem through-and-through’ 2005 voters, then the weighting wouldn’t be correct even if there were no issue with false recall. That sounds very unlikely, however.
238 Plato
wish I was a peer or MP when I did my expense claims
Clegg on GMTV this morning; you can watch here http://www.gm.tv/videos/ but for some reason can’t get a direct link
239 antifrank - Not quite. It’s disastrous at the bottom. It’s of course also helped at the top by the independent sector; the ‘world-class universities’ (actually, not as world-class as they used to be) remain good thanks to the fact that such a huge proportion of their intake has been well-educated in high-quality schools, which happen to be private.
Mike asked at the beginning of the thread what we’ll all talk about once the election is over. My guess is that we’ll be talking about how the pollsters once again got it wrong by weighting their samples for the last election, not this one.
And then we’ll move on to talking about what the Tories are doing wrong, the fall out from the Germans’ bailout of Greece, what’s going to happen with the rest of the PIIGS … And then the mid-terms in the US.
230. I think the bigger question with You Gov is why they are needing to adjust their sample much more to account for a lack of voters with a certain ID. Surely they should just target voters who fit the correct critera in the first place. Another weird thing is when You Gov had the Conservative up in the 20%+ in 2008 the other companies had them at significantly less. To me this suggest there is a major problem with You Gov of either overstating or understating probably both due to weightings.
236: SO - British private education is one of the best in the world, certainly. What would we be in the rankings if only state schools were measured? And are we better now than, say, in 1997?
It’s no use saying that other countries are improving. They may well be but UK employers are saying that too many school-leavers and graduates are either not educated at all or not educated to an acceptable standard. That is a serious failing by a party which chanted “education, education, education” as its mantra.
Too much of the failures around education are down to two things: (1) using education to achieve social / political objectives so that education per se is neglected; and
(2) seeking to punish those who aspire and do well.
All parties have been guilty of this but Labour are particularly culpable since it is the Left’s agenda which has been primarily responsible for both (1) and (2).
208.
All hoary stuff blown off course by the fact that it is because the UK madly chased the “Low tax” mirage that Britain suffered worse public services than her continental neighbours.
You get what you pay for is more powerful and more realistic than rightwing whingeing over value for money. Europeans invest in their public infrastructure and get better services as a result. The UK tried to turn itself into a seedy offshore tax haven - but with European style public services - and has been running huge budget deficits for thirty years, allied to disintegrating public services.
And that simple truth is what dogs the Tory brand even to this day. People no longer believe the rightwing fantasy that money grows on trees. If governments need to spend, they also need to tax. Laffer has been bombed out of the water by experience.
The lesson from Thatch and Reagan: Conservative economics and fiscal ideas don’t work in the real world.
Next Practice session in Bahrain underway.
247 - I know lots of employers prefer people of my age without degrees to recent graduates.
Yay..bits flying off the Lotus already
“No expenses charges for baroness”
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/8564017.stm
248 - Oh please that is utter and complete rubbish.
I wonder if 15.5 for Button to win qualifying (yes, it’s really early) may be worth it. Hamilton shredded the harder tyre in a handful of laps.
239. I think we need new examinations. I don’t think papers are neccessarily getting harder or easier but papers tend to have a pattern to them. As time goes on teachers will have access to more past papers so they can tell their pupils what to revise. Exams such as GCSE’s only need be to use route memorisation. If you remember the main facts of a subject you are assured a decent grade. GCSE pass rates have gone up every year since the exam was introduced (Both under Labour and Conservative governments). The GCSE pass rate will keep going up whoever is in power next year. So surely it is time to introduce new examinations.
To respond to a point made by TSE further upthread, I am becoming really quite bearish about the Lib Dems. After Wales, I shall be tackling the south west seats, so you will be able to judge just how bearish.
Big gaps between the cars at the moment. Red Bull 5sec off the pace of the Mac’s.
256 - Oh good.
Antifrank vs SeanT with a new comments editor in place.
Scrap.Scrap.Scrap.
257, a gap that big may well be fuel.
54. Bunnco has I right. I have in previous posts stated that YouGov’s “Labour Disloyal” category were probably swamped by an (unadjusted for) Conservative Disloyal category.
236, 247 “UK employers are saying that too many school-leavers and graduates are either not educated at all or not educated to an acceptable standard”
But this is merely a routine moan “you just can’t get the staff these days etc etc” - it’s not based on any objective judgment.
FWIW the standard of education my kids (in state secondary school) get today is light years ahead of the one I got (also in state school) in the 1970s. More teachers, more equipment, more testing, much more pressure - it’s hardly surprising that results are better.
There are two statements that are often made here that appear contradictory. I am interested in posters views:
a) Labour and the Lib Dems fish from the same pool i.e. the although the Labour and Lib Dem figures vary their combined total is pretty constant.
b) Lib Dem activists are considered more pro Labour, but their supporters are either evenly divided or possibly more pro Tory.
It seems unlikely that both statements can be true. It is possible that the Lab/LD supports are more fluid and the Tory/LD supporters are more fixed which could then make both statements true, but as analysis of the polls show that previous LD supporters do move to the Tories and previous Tory supports do move to LDs that possibility seems unlikely.
Is it that different posters here are making the different statements and if so which are wrong. or is it more complicated than that?
237.jsfl
Then if I were Mike I would be pushing this poll with the media, trying to get them published!
I do think though that Mike will end up being immensly proud of bringing ARS to the UK, They will probably end up more accurate than the others!
248. Investment and value for money are both important. As is often found when testing high street brand is that often the best product is not either the cheapest or the most expensive. Obviously you if you spend £10 on a window it probably wont be very good. However, you could also spend £5000 on a window and have people who cut corners and it still would not be very good. If on the other hand you paid £2000 pounds for a window fitted by excellent fitters you would be both saving money and also spending the “best value for money” on a window. More money does not mean something is always better sometimes it is other times it is not. You could buy a can of coca cola for 50p or for 150p it is the same can but a different price is it better to buy the expensive can of coca cola???
The virgin looks a handful…
Littlejohn:
“The Conservatives haven’t exactly covered themselves in glory lately, but why is the Government escaping scrutiny?
Labour is responsible for the appalling state of the nation, not Call Me Dave. Yet the boys in the bubble continue to take dictation from the odious Mandelson, who is desperate to deflect the spotlight away from his own party’s dismal record.
Just as our diplomats overseas go native, so most of our full-time political reporters seem to have developed some kind of Stockholm Syndrome.
They have become so used to being utterly dependent on their New Labour captors for the past 13 years that they can’t kick the habit.
The Westminster pack has decided the only story in town is Dave not ’sealing the deal’ rather than the disgraceful track record of this decaying, lying Labour administration. This isn’t journalism, it’s a rolling party political broadcast.”
Amen to that!
FPT. chris_g00 asked which were the infamous “20 seats” Salmond had in mind. Apart from the seven the SNP currently hold, the following are winnable based on results from 2005, 2007 or 2009: Ochil and South Perthshire, Kilmarnock and Loudon, Livingston, Stirling, Edinburgh North and Leith, Glasgow Central, Glasgow South, Aberdeen North, Gordon, Falkirk, East Kilbride, Argyll and Bute and Midlothian. Additionally, the SNP are 7/2 in East Lothian following Labour’s selection problems there.
256 Better get your bets on now. antifrank moves markets.
236. SO
Just Tories running the country down again. Like they do.
208
Brown may be thinking of inflating the debt away.
People and their savings bid a tearful farewell.
234
ARS and YouGov seem to be in an internationally publicised gunfight. If the differences can’t be reconciled, then I don’t see how both parties can dust themselves off and walk away when the gunsmoke clears.
262 kjh
Forced second choice surveys amongst Lib Dem voters (not activists) show that they are more inclined towards Labour than Tory, but not much. This is a fairly recent change, as far as I can tell - last year, they were about equal, or slightly favouring the Tories.
I think the most recent data on this is the TNS survey
http://www.tnsglobal.com/_assets/files/TNS_BRMB_Polling_Feb4_Derived_tables_FINAL.PDF
which shows amongst second choices we have 23% Lab, 13% Con.
265, it was ropey in P1 too. I’d still rather have that than Hormone Replacement Therapy (HRT).
Crikey - loadsamoney
http://conservativehome.blogs.com/leftwatch/2010/03/three-unions-have-given-25-million-to-labour-and-have-now-secured-more-than-100-parliamentary-candid.html
261 - I agree with that. I went to a grammar school in the 1970s - we were taught everything by rote and a good chunk of many of my O Levels were based on multipe choice questions and you coudl generally predict what the written stuf would focus on and you could concntrate your revision on that. The work my kids have had to do for their GCSEs is far more intensive and far more demanding than anything I ever did.
Where we go wrong - at least in the subjects I know anything about - is that it is all too scatter gun in terms of what is taught. I would much prefer to see a focus on British history, literature and geography, say, at GCSE level than random themes gathered from different parts of the world. It is important that our kids know about this country before they start tacling other countries and theme-based stuff. You do need a base from which to work.
256 antifrank
Great article.
267 - If the SNP make three gains, I will be very surprised.
Lewis is either doing lots of low fuel runs, or the Mac’s are exceedingly faster than others.
256 - Thank you Mr AntiFrank.
Where you lead, The markets and I follow.
michaelsavage
In bizarre “Tories + Lab = election victory” twist, Lib Dem slogan is: ‘Change That Works For You. Building A Fairer Britain’. Seriously.
269.
Running the country down?
You make me laugh, its a f4cking mess! after 13 years of LLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaabour!!
Lib slogan “Change That Works For You. Building A Fairer Britain” covers Lab’s “A Future Fair for All” and Con’s “Vote for Change”!
http://twitter.com/Kevin_Maguire/statuses/10367666571
Some men go for women
Some men go for boys
BenM goes for it if it’s on the left
and makes a Marxist noise
279, hahaha.
277, pole will mean sod all if he shreds the hard tyre in 4 laps.
248. “People no longer believe the rightwing fantasy that money grows on trees. If governments need to spend, they also need to tax.”
The idea that any Labour supporter could write that is hilarious. The only question is whether it’s intentionally or unintentionally so.
265 -
274 I think there can be counter-examples. I particularly remember trying to do old O-level papers on History and German which were an absolute nightmare in comparison to the doddle that was the actual GCSE exams themselves. And the less said about Maths standards the better!
John Rentoul:
Is the Tory lead really just three points?
(You will have noticed that the headline on this blog is number 237 of my Questions to Which the Answer is No.)
http://johnrentoul.independentminds.livejournal.com/311647.html
What goes –
“*UGH!*UGH!*UGH!*UGH!*UGGGHHHHH!!!!!!!!!! I love you, Karl.” ?
BenM in his bedroom!
Re: Uddin, Guido ends on this:
Is Udders likely to be charged after May or is the
Labour toe-ragDPP likely to be in-place for the rest of the next Parliament….53 Bunnco’s piece is an excellent, clear, precise explanation of where he thinks the Labour vote is dividing. Now if YouGov sent someone back on here to give us chapter and verse as to their reasoning for Labour Loyal/Disloyal etc, whilst we might not be happy in some cases with their final figures we could hopefully accept the logic behind their reasoning and take that into account when assessing the relative strengths and weaknesses of the various pollsters and their methods.
Are we due any polls tonight? Thankfully it is not a YouGov night so we dont have to wait until 10pm to see the latest instalment.
285 Benji
GCSE french and german is nowhere near the standard of O level. This country no longer teaches history.
155 - BenM is a brilliant spoof and probably the same person who used to post on Guido under the name Harman Pride.
274, 285 Kids also do far more subjects now - in my time 8 O levels was considered a pretty good number - nowadays kids do at least 12 GCSEs and the brighter ones do 14 or 15.
285 - My O level history was a complete breeze. You basically knw the written questions in advance and about 25% of the exam was based on multiple choice. English Language was about 50% multiple choice and a lot of the rest was just writing a story. There was also a big MC component in the maths and physics that I did.
I agree that the languages were hard.
New election widgets from Betfair/ComRes
http://www.electionpredict.com/widgets/
258. Yes what do you want?
Anyway, compare and contract guido’s uddin article with the telegraphs..
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/mps-expenses/7427630/Baroness-Uddin-cleared-over-expenses-scandal.html
The Uddin case hinged around a definition of main home which meant it had to be visited once a month to fit the definition.
Utilities bills were examined apparently.
What does it mean for this case?
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/mps-expenses/5330904/MPs-expenses-Tory-MP-Nadine-Dorries-admits-she-only-spends-weekends-and-holidays-in-her-main-home.html
293 Well things have certainly changed a lot from when I did Cambridge board O levels in the early 80s.
No multiple choice bar a small part of biology paper in ANY subject I sat [9 of them].
http://www.thisislondon.co.uk/standard/article-23814777-baroness-uddin-escapes-facing-charges-on-second-home-expenses.do
235/243: jsfl - No need to be rude, I’m trying to be helpful. The result won’t be affected by whether we guess the polls correctly or not, but bets will be!
jsfl - Well, yes, if the disloyal Labour voters were all polled before the regular LibDems then the LibDem rating would be heading towards zero. What I’m saying is that AR are diluting the disloyal but now “reloyal” Labour voters by counting those who respond later as surplus LibDems.
243: Richard N: agreed, it comes back to the problem of false recall. But the way AR addresses false recall (by ignoring it) is compounded by the current movements of the electorate (Labour losing 2005 support and gaining ex-LibDem 2005 support). There are two groups in question, both large enough to matter:
A. People who voted Labour at some time in the past but not in 2005 and not currently, who mistakenly recall voting Labour last time. (”I was always Labour but no way I’m Labour now, mate”, forgetting they skipped it last time too)
B. People who voted LibDem last time and will vote Labour this time (”I wanted to protest over Iraq but now I want to keep the Tories out”).
Group A is treated by YouGov as former non-Labour, since they are not now party identifiers, and by AR as former Labour, since they claim they voted Labour last time.
Group B is treated by YouGov as (disloyal) Labour and by AR as LibDem.
This is a double whammy. If a group A person comes along when the pollsters haven’t yet filled their “former Labour” quota yet, AR will count them as Labour and record a swing away, but YouGov will count them as Tory or BNP or whatever they are now. If a group B person comes along when the pollsters have filled their LibDem quota, AR counts them as LibDem and discards them, but YouGov counts them as Labour and includes them.
We can argue about the assumptions here but it seems to me pretty clear that it’s the reason for the difference between AR and YouGov.
Incidentally, Kellner did respond on how comes they don’t split off disloyal Tories too - the answer was that there aren’t enough to make a significant difference - generally, 2005 Tory voters are either Tory or abstainers now, though there’s a bit of UKIP loss there.
Unite seem to be intent on destroying British Airways.
‘The union representing British Airways cabin crew has said its members will go on strike for three days from 20 March and for four days from 27 March’
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/8563728.stm
Schumacher has been told that he will not get special treatment. Isn’t this against the rules ?
289. Easterross
The Labour loyal/disloyal debate is a side issue (a significant one but still a side issue). The real question is about Yougov’s use overall of Party ID weighting, its validity and its sustainability.
Boris in new clash with Cameron as he fails to back policy on high-speed rail
http://www.thisislondon.co.uk/standard/article-23814764-boris-in-new-clash-with-cameron-as-he-fails-to-back-policy-on-high-speed-rail.do
299: Four days from 27March…ie just, just before Easter?
Bunch of arses..and to think they now own Labour, lock, stock and barrel.
290 - So where are all the adult German and French speakers in thsi country? I come acrss very few. I did French and Spanish O level and forgot practically all of it as soon as I had finished the exams.
History is not taught as it was previously, but the internet makes learning certain things by rote - as I had to - unnecessary. A far more important historial skill, which we did not begin to learn until A level, is looking critically at primary and secondary source material, understanding the differences betwen them and knowing that you need to interrogate what is presented as fact to see whether it actually stands up to scrutiny. Unbelievably, both my kids were doing that in their comprehensive school history GCSE work in Year 10, or fourth form as I still prefer to call it.
Poster from elsehwere has made this comment and worth posting here given that the Troops apparently have everything they need according to our great leader.
“Watching last night’s Question Time – got to the part where the 18 year old soldier’s mother in the audience says that for his 18th birthday,she bought her son some webbing to hold his ammo and kit,as well as other basics.
Even Dimbleby was astonished.
The useless window dressing Labour cow (Flint) was even gobsmacked and advised her to go and talk to her local MP!
Incredible,simply incredible.
We bank roll India and countless other countries who build space rockets and we cannot even send our troops to war with the basic kit.This is absolutely amazing.”
Paul Waugh has a visual of the Lib Dem slogan, it even includes a banana.
http://waugh.standard.co.uk/2010/03/that-libdem-logo-in-full.html
296 - I did mostly London board in the early 1980s, though I think English was Oxford.
Does anyone remember this week’s Tory mendacity about violent crime statistics (trying to claim that violent crime had “risen by 44pc since 1997″)?
As usual, Chris Grayling took some figures received from a parliamentary question and put them together in a press release given to the Tories’ favourite chums in the national media (Telegraph and Mail most prominently) but wouldn’t release the raw data!
And Tory pom pom cheerleaders here have the gall to accuse Labour of running a dirty spin and lies campaign (aww boo-hoo)! When will Tory’s become aware of the skeletons in their own closet on dirty campaigning I wonder? When they’ve lost the election by the look of it!
304. I’m about three months away from graduating with a degree in History and French, if that helps?
Whilst what you say about analysing sources is true, it’s important to have a proper understanding of context as well- and that’s something that a lot of people simply haven’t been taught. I know some very bright people who know the Tudors and Stuarts backwards, for example, but couldn’t tell you what the Magna Carta is.
293 SO. About your O-level examinations. Which board was this? By your posting name it suggests JMB.
I did JMB exams in the late 60’s/early 70’s and went to a Grammar School. We didn’t find them easy, and we had NO multiple choice exams.
I don’t think that the education standards issue is a left/right issue so much as a difference of opinion in the best strategy to teach our kids. I partly agree with your views on the teaching of history, but there is a case to be made for the idea that learning so much about other countries is more inclusive and instills respect for other cultures.
As ever, it boils down to getting the balance right, rather than being an either/or situation..
293 Seems wierd to have multiple choice in history. In my Gcse history exam we just had to write essays-the rest of the marks came from personal studies and casework on Northern Ireland which was pretty rewarding-I have no complaints about the standard of education in terms of History that I received.
309 Absolutely. My history lessons started with the Stone Age and moved chronologically until the the General Strike, with brief excursions about Bourbons and the US Civil War - then stopped!
My knowledge of anything from 1926 has been catch-up ever since.
308 you don’t red heart the Tories much do you Ben?
I feel similarly about the troop-betraying, economy-wrecking, authoritarian, undemocratic, union puppet, socialist dogma, sponger loving idiots that are Labour.
Its fun to be anti. Be even more fun when Brown makes Kinnock look successful on May 7
Language GCSEs are just a joke now. I speak as a qualified linguist. Even my daughter’s French teacher agreed with me. For example, for their oral, they just have to learn responses to a list of questions. These responses are meant to be their own, but there is no check to see that they have not received any help in preparing answers. Answers are learnt by rote and then just parroted. How does this test students’ ability to participate in an everyday conversation? It doesn’t.
I realy fear for the future of language learning in this country.
312 - That looks libellous to me.
312.Quite right. What do Former Chiefs of the General Staff know about the British Army. I’m sure you are correct…
309 - “but couldn’t tell you what the Magna Carta is”
That’s an absolutely shocking indictment. I had one myself back in the 70s - the fuel economy was pretty good, but it was let down by the rear suspension and a notoriously temperamental head gasket.
I dreamt I dwelt in a marble palace . and when I woke up I found I did …. in Bangladesh …. and I also had a house in Maidstone (although I never visited it for a long time) …. and I had social housing in the East End …. and I made some very good expenses claims for overnight allowances from the House of Lords authorities …. and that KEIR STARMER, the Director of Public Prosecutions, is a very nice man …
She pocketed around £100,000 in overnight allowances despite living just four miles from Parliament.
Scotland Yard began a criminal probe into the Labour peer after her neighbour in Maidstone, Yvonne Adams, that she did not even use the Kent property.
Lady Uddin had insisted she had done nothing wrong and that she had stayed in the Maidstone flat regularly.
Read more: http://www.mailonsunday.co.uk/news/article-1257391/Baroness-...
304 SO
the teaching of modern foreign languages in this country is abysmal. The decline has accelerated since taking a language to GCSE was no longer made obligatory. Somehow in the spirit of “joined up government” NFL was attempted to be introduced in primary schools - totally bizarre. Most kids these days are avoiding MFL as it is seen to be “hard” compared to other subjects and schoold midful of their targets are more interested in an pass in anything rather than a subject which might require some work.
As for history, the attention to so-called sources etc. is just complete bollocks imo, kids leave school without any understanding of this nation’s history and the order of events. It is becoming another play-doh subject and changes in the curriculum next year will make it worse.
312 What a surprise. HMG continues to smear anyone who dares question or criticise it’s actions.
298. Nick Palmer
What I’m saying is that AR are diluting the disloyal but now “reloyal” Labour voters by counting those who respond later as surplus LibDems.
Again you have no evidence that this is happening? Now I dont think you are a fool (your political alliegances aside) so please do not try and treat other people as fools. To do so is really rude and to do so in such a disingenuous manner considering your mathematics is not only rude but contemptible.
Now if you want to continue in your delusion that Labour can spin and lie as they have in the past and get away with it by all means do so but don’t consider people who call you on it rude. They are just being realistic.
In anycase the loyal/disloyal consideration is a side issue. The main issue at stake here is Yougov’s Party ID Weighting.
298 Nick P - The trouble is that we don’t really know whether ‘false recall’ is acting as you suggest, nor can we easily calibrate the extent of the problem if it does exist. What you say is plausible, but one could also posit alternative false-recall hypotheses such as ‘missing Tories’, who might have voted Conservative in 2005 but were not actually motivated to do so.
The other clue in the tea-leaves is of course the high level of Others in AR and in some of the other pollsters.
mathematics = mathematics background
303
The union will strike for the three days from the 20th, then forgo strike action immediately before Easter for PR reasons…
YouGov tables:
http://www.yougov.co.uk/extranets/ygarchives/content/pdf/TheSun-results_11.03-trackers.pdf
wibbler @ 11.52
I was a bit concerned about our PM and Chancellor having completely different economic policies, thus plunging the country into paralysis at a time of crisis, but now I know the Tory party is disintegrating over the location of a bus stop on Tottenham High Street, I’m definitely voting for Gordon Brown.
320 Alanbrooke
Couldn’t agree more
274 - interesting. There was a TV programme a few years ago where a load of A-grade GCSE students were put in a 1950s style school for several weeks and given exams at the end. I recall their results were modest at best.
Then there’s also the point that people probably aren’t as good at mental arithmetic nowadays beecause we have calculators and decimal currency.
One thing to watch is the combined Labour/Tory share in the poll. Three days ago, this was 66% with YouGov. Last night, it was 71%. With Angus Reid, it is 65%.
309 and 310 - Yes, I agree that context is vital and I would like to see history teaching at GCSE be much more focused on a linear exploration of Britain’s past. I would also like to see much more emphasis on British literature in English and on British economic geography. You need the base before you can strat to go off and do the other stuff. In that regard things have certainly changed and I think for the worse.
My general point, though, is that kids today are asked to do a lot more work, much of which is far more taxing than I ever had to do. And the teachers are also far moe engaged. In fact, it is arguable that they are asked to do so much that many of them switch off and just do not bother engaging at all.
Having sai all that, recently I have become much moe interested in the idea of reviving grammar schools more generally; as long as - and this is absolutely crucial - there is a way to genuinely identify all those that would benefit from a more academically based education so that you prevent the better off effectively buying their kids into schools through tutors etc. And, of course, it would also be vital to ensure that the schools most kids went to were not regarded and treated as second best. How you do that remains a puzzle to me.
298 - Surely the argument in your antepenultimate paragraph can be made in reverse, Nick (notwithstanding the fact that pollsters don’t literally “discard” responses and seek to “fill” quotas)?
Are YouGov weighting by the party ID that a user indicates when completing the poll, or do they weight to the long-held party ID that they have stored centrally? And surely they polled everyone on their database the day after the 2005 election to store a “true” record of how they voted then (though some would have lied!)? Could they try weighting to that (there’d be obvious difficulties with new members and the 18-24 age group).
329 - the problem is, its a non-reversable experiment.
312
Is there nobody the bunker won’t smear?
304 Now that really does surprise me. We were specifically taught how to recognize the difference between primary and secondary sources for the gcse exam-If I remember correctly we had to evaluate Churcill’s culpability for the Gallipoli disaster with reference to the documents provided in the exam paper.
326:
08/03: London Con:45, Lab:31
11/03:London Con:37 Lab:35
Big ol swings.
Plato @ 12.01
Chalk and talk,
Plato to Nato.
That’s the perfect history NC.
328 sarah
of course the thing which is even more galling is while modern language teaching is disappearing we are constantly being lectured by the same people about being good Europeans.
330 erratum - three nights ago, the combined Labour/Tory total with YouGov was 68%.
Looking at the weightings on yesterday’s YouGov there was a large increase in Labour Loyal, a slight trimming of Conservatives, a large increase in LibDems and no change in Labour Disloyal….
@318:
Poor Magna Carta. Looks like she did die in vain after all.
335 benji
the topic doesn’t surprise me! My son’s latest history assignment is to design a poster stating the bad things about the British Empire. I told him to write it had put Arab slave-traders in West Africa out of buisiness and therefore they couldn’t earn a living.
340: Smaller survey size too.
312 I think this comment isn’t libellous as it is just an opinion expressed in a forceful yet strangely uninformed manner - I don’t think we should run in fear of being sued by honourable men, who have more sense than to pursue a ridiculous conspiracy theorist.
I feel sorry for today’s teenagers - previous generations of lefties had a noble cause to support, soviet hegemony of Eastern Europe and the suppression of economic growth in the developing world; now they are left with Gordon Brown and optional backing for islamic fascism - o tempore o mores!
312 Lilly. As one of your songs puts it. F*** You! Bye Bye Labour.
309/318 - The Magna Carta? That’s the kind of syntax the hoi polloi would use!
A little piece of reality for the clearly out of touch Ben M.
up and down the country, business owners and company directors are adjusting their annual salary packages to ensure that they have taken the excess above Gordon’s new 50% rate before 5th April. As only partnerships and sole traders are tied to the 5th April date, limited companies with varying year ends are perfectly entitled to adjust the remuneration cycles of their higher paid employees. End result is that the 50% rate will only affect those with highly inflated salaries and the raft of overpaid council managers who frankly deserve to be taxed to exhaustion since by and large they are Labour supporters.
I noted SO and nickc’s comments about school leavers and rising standards. Clearly the traditional universities who are refusing to accept the current micky mouse “A” and “A*” passes must be wrong. Was it an Oxford or Cambridge college which announced a few months ago that a full third of applicants to study Pure Maths had been rejected on the basis that they fell woefully short of the minimum entry standard.
I see thousands of CVs every year and on the strength of them, few people under the age of 35 seem capable of reading, writing or spelling. Indeed so called graduates are even incapable of using “spell-check”.
331. I don’t think I’d disagree with any of that, old boy. It’d be possible to improve the curriculum significantly just by ending the practice of hopping about chronologically. Specialisation at A-Levels is a good idea, but until then it’s imperative that someone can draw a direct line from 1066 to 1945, say, and not be flummoxed by any of the important events in between.
Got to love this quote from the LibDem constituency chairman in Taunton Dean:
“We are intellectually closer to them because the Tories’ ideas are based around people making money and keeping it,” said Sarah Wakefield, the constituency party chairman.
“Lib Dems wrestle with dilemmas at prospect of deal with Tories”
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/politics/article7059035.ece
346 - Fair point, the Aaron.
@348:
My impression is that modern history syllabubs have become disproportionately obsessed with the European Superwar that ran from 1914-1991, which has had the side effect of pushing a lot of older, more abstract British constitutional history aside.
344 - Ms Allen clearly ascribes dishonourable motives to those making the accusation against Gordon Brown. My concern is not that honourable men might pursue a ridiculous conspiracy theorist but that they might pursue Mr Smithson.
From The Angus Reid detail.
Voters asked what outcome they wanted -
33% Conservative Govt
22% Labour Govt
18% Hung Parliament.
326 Again, note the vote for UKIP and the BNP.
If Yougov (and other internet pollsters) are correct, they’ll either deprive the Conservatives of victory, or hold their noses and deliver it to them.
Lilly Allen March 12th, 2010 at 12:00 pm
Gets down in the sewer with MacBride and other Labour filth.
On another exams note, although being taught about nouns and verbs etc I was never taught how to parse a sentence. In fact I’d never even heard the word “parse” until after my GCSEs.
269 - I find this trend amongst Labour to attack anyone who criticises them of the thoughtcrime of ‘talking the country down’ very worrying.
How long before bemoaning the wreck of our economy and education system is a crime, Ben?
276. Perhaps. I merely answer chris’s question.
343 - Slackbadder I think it was yesterday I picked up on that. I suspect either their response rates are down or they are spreading out response to avoid repeat questions. Anthony said the repeat questioned was somewhere under 200 on his blog. We’ll see how that goes.
353 - So an 11% lead on that question.
“Lib-Dems in turmoil over coalition with Cameron”
“The Liberal Democrats today faced a possible split over plans to work with David Cameron as an opinion poll pointed to a hung Parliament.”
http://www.thisislondon.co.uk/standard/article-23814717-lib-dems-in-turmoil-over-coalition-with-cameron.do
347 Easterross
I have 3 teenage kids at various stages between GCSE and University. The one things I really do feel for students these days is what a crap deal they get. Every year is loaded with pointless tests, the results of which no-one really believes anyway. The worst has to be the AS examine. For me lower sixth was a year off hard studying when you learnt about pubs. Today it is just more mind-numbing exams. And as you rightly point out now many universities are loading their own tests on top since the grades they see tell them little. It’s just the proof that prizes for all ultimately means nothing.
“We are intellectually closer to them because the Tories’ ideas are based around people making money and keeping it,” said Sarah Wakefield, the constituency party chairman”
We can’t allow that.
She can’t have been very happy with Nick Clegg’s comments about Margaret Thatcher.
Hulkenberg also reporting the rear tyres are going away a lot.
He’s one to watch, I think.
Brake wear is going to be tough, and tyre wear somewhat as well. Could be a good race for finding out cars which are unreliable.
360: Always said there was a danger of a Lib Dem split regardless of who they team up with. theres a signifigant base of both sides which a deal with either would be unacceptable.
351 That’s correct. At GCSE level we studied,in chronological order,World War 1,the rise of Hitler,World War 2 with special focus on Barbarossa and Stalingrad,the Cuban Missile Crisis,the Vietnam War and Northern Ireland(focusing on Long Kesh). I can’t really complain about this,as the history was fascinating and certainly ignited my love for the subject,but I can see how people might feel that British history s being ignored.
181 - I’m a London based nonentity in the world of The Sun. So I don’t know, sorry.
Though I did have dinner with some very important people and am friends with people who rule the world. Ahem.
Also, looking at the tables on AR, when asked if their preferred party is not available, the vote will split:
Labour - 5%
Conservative - 15%
LibDem - 23%
SNP - 1%
Another party - 28%
Would not vote - 8%
Not sure - 20%
Table 14
360 - I do wonder whether the problem Clegg faces on that is within the Commons, or the party membership. I can imagine the MPs going along with it if it meant a snifter of power, but that the Mark Seniors of this world would most likely explode with rage.
312. Is LA really just a Lab backbencher - PMQ’s suggests perhaps so?
We’ve also seen their quality of intellect amongst some of them (excl NPMP natch) such as the C4 interview a while back with one of those in court y’day….
366, that’s a little over-familiar, Mr. Roe. I think of us more as friendly acquaintances.
357 - All govrnments accuse oppositions of talking the country down. It is part of the political ritual in this country.
351. Hitler and Stalin’s respective crimes pale in comparison with the suffering caused by spending half of my school years studying them repeatedly.
We know Labour will poll a lot less votes in many of its safe seats than it did in 1983.
How? Because it polled a lot less votes in those seats in 2005 and 2001 than 1983.
Unless, of course, you expect Labour’s vote to rise in places like Barnsley Central.
If Labour’s vote does drop in middle-class seats, it will poll less votes than 1983.
364 I don’t know if a government that was more than a few seats short of an overall majority could be anything other than a lame duck administration.
Perhaps some sort of time-limited national government would be necessary to tackle our economic problems.
P2 seems to have been long-running. Hamilton faster than Button, but Button’s tyre management *may* be significantly better.
Not much useful info. Interesting that Rosberg is faster than Schumacher in both sessions thus far.
P3 will matter the most, I think. That said, I’ll start jotting down some thoughts for my article this evening, so I can write it more quickly tomorrow morning.
FACT: I’m beginning to really hate Comments Manager. I demand a coup.
362 - I missed this new Libdem policy. Are you allowed to keep any money to feed and clothe yourself or is there a sort of communal pot?
I was told off by my history grad ex for saying The Magna Carta. I think it doomed the relationship.
I think the McLaren is the car to back this weekend. I’m gonna have some pennies on Force India for a sneaky podium too.
347 - I note you talk about people under the age of 35, many - if not most - of whom would have been educated in the 80s and 90s.
377 The policy (I believe) is to encourage hard work and enterprise so that citizens can keep the lazy in a manner to which they themselves used to be accustomed.
376, 12 years ago an elite shoal of genetically engineered haddock escaped from a high security fish farm. Today, they’re on the run from the authorities in the Whitby underground. If you have a problem, if no-one else can help and, if you can find them, maybe you can hire “The Enormo-Haddock”.
[Just don't try and put BA Barracuda on a plane].
347. Regarding your comments on young people - I’m glad I don’t work for a narrow minded bigot like yourself. But that’s by the by.
If your convoluted thesis about pay packets being adjusted prior to 5th April were to hold true (and that income is PAYE as in the case of company directors), then the government ought to expect a nice little windfall in tax receipts just prior to the election. A nice little something for the government to spread around just prior to the election!
If, as is more likely, your thesis isn’t true, then the 50pc tax rate will be as successful as the banking bonus tax has been.
So win-win all round for the government.
374 Begs the question what majority makes the best government. People, mostly Tories at the moment for understandable reasons, dismiss hung/balanced parliaments. Huge landslides aren’t good either IMO, the executive can get out of touch. Where is the sweetspot for a democratic govt that can govern for a full term without being captured by minority interests or an executive clique?.
A 30-50 seat majority perhaps?
Perhaps the sweetspot simply doesn’t exist in our system.
374. The Machiavellian strategy would be to “dispose” of the most marginally seated Opposition MPs, and win the resulting by-elections. Bang. Parliamentary majority.
It’s been pointed out to me that the colours of the logo exactly match those in the Somerfield supermarket logo. Does this mean they’ve abandoned the Northern vote?
http://waugh.standard.co.uk/2010/03/that-libdem-logo-in-full.html
356 Yes I was never taught any grammar at secondary school - at the time (1970s) it was considered old-fashioned & unnecessary. Many teachers were opposed to testing in any form - I recall one English teacher who refused to set or mark any form of test - even end-of-year exams. So we didn’t do any in that subject.
I agree that foreign languages have been downgraded - this partly due to the growth of English as the international business/internet language - until about 15 years ago English was on pretty much equal terms with French, but now it’s way ahead. Kids today go on holiday abroad much more than in the past, but hardly ever encounter people who don’t speak English. Even in France English is now quite widely spoken and understood - very different from the situation 30 years ago. It’s very hard to convince kids of the benefits of learning other languages when they will never hear them spoken outside the classroom.
378, Force India *may* spring a surprise. There’s another team I have my eye on but I don’t want to mention them until later.
Button may, as suggested in commentary, benefit from the fuel load working tyres and brakes harder.
382 - BenM, you really are a most ridiculous creature.
Your line of codswallop may go down well in the pub, but here on PB you are just an embarrassment.
The Rise of Hitler is studied so often because teachers can hand out black and red crayons and have a bit of peace and quiet as the class draw and colour in swastikas.
381 As BA Barracuda was often heard to say to Howlin Mad Limpet ‘you aint gettin me on no aquaplane, sucker!’
382 - Surely a 70% tax rate would have been even more successful, Ben?
378: Rosberg was always fast in practices last year too. doesn’t mean anything for the race.
My moneys swinging to the Mac’s.
The Wrath of Crosby:
http://www2.politicalbetting.com/index.php/archives/2010/01/04/is-there-anything-to-learn-from-jan-2005-polls/#comment-1369897
392, Hamilton shredding his tyres in 4 laps would make me wary of backing him. It doesn’t matter how fast you are: if you fck your tyres in 4 laps (the harder compound) then you’ll be having more pit stops than Prescott has pies.
However, Button may well be thanking whoever banned refuelling.
It’s still very, very hard to call.
391.
No, but pulling the 50pc threshold down to £100K might be.
389 That reminds me of 3rd year RE. A box ticking exercise by a seriously useless/demotivated deputy head.
A whole term spent colouring in a photocopied diagram of Stonehenge. Still not sure what this has to do with RE.
I kid you not. Shocking really on reflection.
My friends and I did our homework from other lessons. Sadly a long time ago now
Life was easy then.
@389:
I mean, it’s not as if learning about Hitler and Stalin and Churchill aren’t important in the grand scheme of things, but still…
395 - I think you’ll find the tax rate is effectively 60% at £100k.
Hitler is studied relentlessly as it is easy to fit it into a comicbook history format where “good” triumphs over “evil”.
@396:
It’s either that or get laughed at by telling the kids about an invisible magic man that will let them live in his garden when they’re dead…
Here’s one for industrial relations experts. Is striking generally counter-productive for everyone other than the self-promoting union leaders?
I simply can’t see what the BA crew hope to achieve. The most likely effect is people stopping flying BA permanently and loads of redundancies.
396, I loved RE and then RS. It helped that the teacher was fantastic, the class was pretty good and we regularly wandered off into mostly or entirely unrelated conversations about the ineffectiveness of the UN, Blackadder and Monty Python.
344 Please check the facts in my comment, you will find that they are all correct. Those men mentioned, Guthrie and Boyce are in the pockets of large companies with vested interests in making money out of war.
374 Sean F - The trouble is that you can’t have a national government unless there is consensus about what needs to be done, and (more importantly) the will to do it, against a background of ferocious opposition from the unions and other vested interests, without engaging in cheap political positioning. The former might be attainable (just), but there is every indication that the latter would not.
Meanwhile I see that the LibDems have left it a bit late to try to work out what their strategic purpose actually is. That too doesn’t exactly inspire confidence that government in a hung parliament would actually be workable.
386 nickc
This is a very lazy way of thinking. Learning a language is about much more than just being able to communicate when you’re on holiday - it gives you a deeper understanding of the culture and psyche of the people, plus a glimpse into their literature and history. It fosters a healthy communication at a much deeper level, not to say respect.
French people may speak English more now when we’re over there, but it doesn’t mean they like us any the more for it. The difference you get in terms of rapport and helpfulness when you actually speak French to them instead of expecting them to speak English is huge.
377
Self, self, self.
Now you want to eat, eh?
Millions starved during the heyday of State Socialism. Do you think you’re better than them?
Grow up and think of the collective for a change.
395 BenM
You can’t even be consistent for 24 hours Ben. Now you are advocating more tax creep.
From yesterday 12.53pm
Alanbrooke: I think I’ll find that with any new taxation what starts off at being aimed at the “rich” quickly ends up coming down the scale and hitting everyone.
BenM: I think you’re talking nonsense
382 Ben, clearly you are being paid in conga shells in the bunker. You have no grasp of commercial realities.
261 - Nick C: it is not a routine moan. It is based on my experience of recruiting and employing people with very good - on paper - qualifications but lacking in the ability to write a good note or present a summary of arguments in a coherent and grammatical way. Few of them were taught - as I was - grammar and how to write a precis; all had a language qualification but were unable to open their mouths and say anything much beyond “good morning: I’ll have a coffee please”. Tested to death they may be but they were not educated. There is a difference.
@404:
They’re waiting to see if the AV referendum survives the wash-up.
There’s no way they’d support a Tory government if we were committed to repealing the AV referendum. I suspect we’d be forced to concede it (and frankly, AV’s not a terrible voting system for Westminster).
These ‘walkouts’ by Cabin Crew - is that not rather dangerous in the flying business?
Looking further down the field, why is Barichello continuing to flog himself round the circuit at the back of the (real) field after such a long career near the front? Seems almost sad.
401 - A good friend, who is a senior member of BA cabin crew, is determined to strike. “They’re trying to put me in a box”, he wails regularly (they’re making him do a few more shifts a month). He has stated that BA is harassing and bullying 4,000 members of staff.
He gets scant sympathy from my other half or me. As my other half points out, the job of cabin crew isn’t really very skilled and is very well-paid at BA. But the feeling of entitlement is genuinely very strong and from Heathrow at least, I expect the strike will be strongly supported.
My flight to and from Cyprus was out of Gatwick. The cabin crew were quite happy to talk about the possibility of a strike: the overwhelming emotion from all of them was schadenfreude. Their terms had been changed a couple of years back and they got no support from the Heathrow teams. They sounded ready to return the favour.
312.Good afternoon Lilly..Would you care to put your comment onto the Army website.Just for a balance you understand.
411 You should see the pickets. A 747 with a brazier on the wing is quite a sight.
403 - I would be very interested to know who you work for and whose pocket you’re in.
Further to my post re languages, witness the bad press and lack of respect towards Baroness Ashton by the Europeans. I would suggest that a goodly portion on this is due to or at least partly stems from their incredulity that she has been appointed to such a high-ranking post, when she can barely speak any other language.
412, I imagine he gets paid a six figure salary per week.
Plus, the Williams could be good. It tested well. Although we have four big teams, I wouldn’t be surprised if the likes of Force India, Toro Rosso, Sauber and Williams manage to score some good points and the odd podium.
415 Perhaos they will announce a go slow and follow on behind the 747 in a glider?
418 - After the career he’s had, I can’t believe he needs the money unless he has seriously bad money-management issues.
Phillip Hammond on Sky tying Whelan and Unite to Brown and insisting the PM use his influence to end the strike threat.
*snigger*
On the education sub thread.
I have just moved to New York, where the debate on competition in education through “Charter Schools” is raging. In a long piece in the local paper the Head of a local Public (local authority run) School made the following telling comment. “Now that we have to compete for pupils, and only get funding for those we win, we have to be very clear about what our school can deliver, to communicate it to current and prospective pupils and their parents, AND TO DELIVER WHAT WE PROMISE”
In England ? If only ?
398.
395 - I think you’ll find the tax rate is effectively 60% at £100k.
I think you’re wrong.
I work it out that a £100K per annum earner with no other income or deductions pays £35K or so per annum in income tax and NI.
That’s effectively a 35pc tax rate.
I see the Lib Dem’s have mixed the Labour party’s and Conservative Party’s slogans together “Change that works for you, building a fairer Britain”. The Conservatives “Vote for Change” , Labour “Future Fair for all”
417 – Sarah, Re: Baroness Ashton, Daniel Hannan expressed that perfectly when he addressed the EU council in flawless French.
Bright chap is our Dan.
405 Yes I agree with you - I am not advocating the dropping of foreign languages, just offering an explanation as to why kids and teachers see them as less important nowadays.
I would speculate that in the future English will become universal and learning other languages will be as unusual as learning Latin or Ancient Greek is today - I do not say this would be a positive change, but the internet may have made it inevitable.
415 Maybe we’ll see a return of flying pickets?
417. It’s both worrying and amusing in equal measure, that my French is better than Baroness Ashton’s. I suppose it’s also inspirational to all the people out there who are unencumbered by the great burden of talent.
342. Sorry - you can’t have that. The Empire didn’t put (all) Arab slave traders out of business. Arabs and Africans carried on trading slaves through to the 1920s and Arabs were owning them until the 1950s.
So there weren’t any bad things about it after all, just the odd regrettable incident.
421 - that’s superb, and quite right that it be mentioned.
410.M Coxall. Would we not be condemned to permanent Lib/Lab or Lib/Con governments so good for the LDs but not anyone else?
422 RobertD - Yep. Just requires a few thousand key voters to put the X in the right box and it will happen.
425
A bit brighter than Nigel - although the audiences were different.
413 “He gets scant sympathy from my other half or me. As my other half points out, the job of cabin crew isn’t really very skilled”
Oh really? Prepared to bet your life on unqualified cabin crew?
Quite a lot of training required to do it properly. Serving the tea is a minor part of the job. You should try evacuating a full 747 in panic mode listing at 45 degrees in under a minute before you tell me it is unskilled.
Then try doing it after 4 consecutive cross Atlantic flights and think how much you would want to be paid for it.
I see Our Lady of Verbal Gonorrhea, Lilly Allen, has flaked another bit of dead spin onto the duvet of discussion.
430 as was Hammond letting us all know that Unite have given 11 million to Labour in recent times.
Thick as thieves.
Willie Walsh has withdrawn his latest offer as the strike annoucements are a provocation.
Smash the unions!
Typical Labour spending loads of money so everyone in the country can have a Fun Fare each. As they say “a future fare for all”
423 - I meant the marginal tax rate, obviously. Either you knew that, and are trolling, or you are spectacularly stupid. Which is it?
427 Richard
Groan you should be ashamed of yourself
421/430, Hammond’s a good asset for the Tories. Sensible, boring, dependable sort of character.
Richard and jsfl, thank you for your responses, respectively civil as always and less so! I need to do other stuff so will leave it there - I was trying to make sense of the differences but ultimately we’ll soon know anyway. Incidentally, I notice in the current YouGov sample the Labour uplift needed is much lower but there’s a big LibDem uplift instead.
412. Perhaps he just enjoys his job, even if he isn’t fighting at the glory end.
403 Thank you for responding - I don’t doubt the veracity of the information; I’m not sure if your point is that the defence industry is by definition evil and those people who work for it are all liars. If they are correct and defence spending has fallen in real terms then the evil defence companies aren’t getting good value for money. If they are wrong then Brown has been increasing defence spending and lining the pockets of the international arms dealers so what are they moaning about?
Personally I think it’s because they are professional soldiers and know more about the disgustingness of war close up than you or me and they know about the need to protect and provide the best equipment possible to mitigate your own losses.
Philosophically defence spending cannot be convincingly argued as wrong by definition - however lying and taking the country to war on a false basis and then denying adequate funding is actually moral bankruptcy of the most shameful kind. So shame on Gordon Brown and shame on any socialist who thinks he is a fit person to be Prime Minister of this country.
431
Lib/Con?
St.Vince would have apoplexy!
434 Jonathan think how much you would want to be paid for it.
But that is precisely the point. Other airlines pay less and get perfectly good cabin crew. There are plenty of applicants for such jobs.
@431:
Not wanting to start another electoral reform discussion, probably not. AV most benefits the winner of an election. If we were using it in May, we’d probably end up with more Tory and Lib Dem seats, fewer Labour, and a larger overall Tory majority.
445 How good they are is yet to be put to the test.
Only a matter of time I suppose before the H&S / check-box tickers got to it….
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/gloucestershire/8563692.stm
Well… WillHill rants publicly that punters don’t back Conservative Overall Majority — but they just keep refusing the bets I try to place on it with them!
448, for fck’s sake.
I may have to add “Stabbing anyone who thinks H&S is right to invade our lives” to my manifesto.
Despite H&S fears I retain my commitment to firing the Cabinet into the heart of the sun from a giant cannon, and throwing anyone who annoys me into the Thames.
Yes, Big Issue salesmen, this means you.
447 PS It’s quite subtle.
E.g. if you have to adopt the crash position never interleave your fingers. Cup one hand in the other. That way only one hand will not have broken fingers. You will be able to undo your seat belt.
Also always watch the demo. Confused people have died in the dark trying to undo the belt as if it were a car seat belt. They died ripping the corner of the seat apart looking for the buckle, when it was in their lap.
Scarey. Pay peanuts get monkeys. Your life.
383 Jonathan. “Perhaps the sweetspot simply doesn’t exist in our system.”
I think that you are right. A party winning a landslide has nothing like the freedom of action that its more enthusiastic supporters believe, and a party winning power on a small majority always feels entitled to carry out its “mandate” however controversial it is (e.g. Heath in 1970).
The long-running control of councils by one party, of whatever colour, is just as bad. It breeds complacency and the potential for corruption.
This is one of the reasons why I favour changing the electoral system to a more proportional one. However LibDems need to sort themselves out first. Like the drill for crossing the road, they have to look both ways, not just left. I mean REALLY look, not just pay lip service .
448 Brown’s No-Fun Britain
382. “If, as is more likely, your thesis isn’t true, then the 50pc tax rate will be as successful as the banking bonus tax has been.”
The success of failure of the 50% band will not be clear for many years. You may collect a bit more tax revenue now, but will businesses and individuals choose to work in the UK in the future? I sure as hell can’t think of many positive reasons to do so now, and paying more tax is certainly not one of them.
BenM @ 423: You’re wrong. All income from £100K up to c. £113K is effectively taxed at a marginal rate of 60% because of the effect of withdrawing the personal allowance completely.
Now go away and learn the difference between a marginal tax rate and the total amount of tax paid on your whole income expressed as a percentage. Use one side of the paper only. No conferring.
451 - It really is a life-or-death job. You can’t put a price on human life, so they should all be paid at least £50k. Not to mention that they are putting their own lives on the line, too.
448 Brown’s No-Fun Britain.
Lilly Allen will probably say
Most of the participents were probably Tories anyway
448. And so another great British tradition bites the dust, thanks to Nannying New Labour.
Tories should seize on this example of stupidity: this kind of thing, apparently trivial, makes people really HATE our pettifogging PC government.
Labour: ruining everybody’s fun since 1997.
Germany finiding it’s feet in Europe again.
http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/adrianmichaels/100029650/germany-wants-to-punish-the-euro-offenders/
There are very few managers who can make UNITE look halfway reasonable.
Willie Walsh of Aer Lingus and Heathrow Terminal 5 is one of the very few.
451 Jonathan Pay peanuts get monkeys
“Former Labour Candidate Brands Virgin Cabin Crew ‘Monkeys’”
457 Think of the cheese. It will now be able to roam the country in freedom and peace. Nothing quite like it, a majestic sight.
A strange yellow object has appeared in the sky, and it seems to be producing light and heat through the process of nuclear fusion.
Mysterious.
“Change that works for you, building a fairer Britain”
Not wishing to be pedantic, but isn’t that two slogans?
Philip Hammond MP, Shadow Chief Secretary to the …
BBC News
Mr Hammond accused Gordon Brown of being “beholden” to the Unite union in the row over British Airways strikes. Unite is a big donor to the Labour party and Mr Hammond suggested Labour was unwilling to criticise their actions.
“What we needed to hear from Gordon Brown was condemnation of these pointless strike proposals” he said.
“The Labour Party is not a third-party bystander in all this. Brown appears to have looked the other way and failed to have put the interests of the travelling public over his party’s.”
434 ‘…a full 747 in panic mode listing at 45 degrees’
Fantasy scenario. Where is it, on water? Name one example of a 747 that’s successfully ditched in water. Plenty have slammed into the sea.
Personally, I wouldn’t have much faith in most trolley dollies if my life was in danger in an air crash.
456 - I’m sorry, but planes aren’t falling from the Sky every 10 minutes. They aren’t in a war zone. They’re on the safest form of transport known to man; one where you’d have to travel on it every hour of every day for 29,000 years to be sure of dying in a crash.
Of course they should be trained well, but this idea that they deserve bumper money because they might, at some point, have to do something high-stress is just daft.
Relocation, Relocation
http://waugh.standard.co.uk/2010/03/pimlico-plumbers-off-to-spain-over-50p-tax-rate.html
Yup, the 50% tax rate has been a roaring success…
paulwaugh
Adios UK. Pimlico Plumbers are off to Spain in protest at 50p tax rate. http://bit.ly/9GfvSh
Re BA, I have a flight booked on 31 March. 4 days from 27 would mean the strike ends on the 30th. Yes? Anyone know?
461 Who mentioned Virgin? Certainly not me. You really must try harder.
467 - Knew I should have included a smiley
470 yes, 27,28,29 and 30 are down for strikes
466 EdP I am sure that you want serious danger money to serve SeanT tea.
466 EdP
But what about ‘I’m Mandy fly me’
441. Nick Palmer
Well I wouldn’t want you to feel all is forgiven, now would I? Labour has yet to answer properly for the past 13 years and in particular making us suffer Gordon Brown.
As for the adjustments well it depends on how you look at the figures. On Party ID from what I can see Labour were uplifted by 26 and the Libdems by 31. So not much difference their. The key thing was yesterday that they found more Labour identifiers and less Libdem identifiers. So the weightings kicked in to make sure it fitted Yougovs view of things.
Incidentally, yesterday saw the lowest weighted Conservative and Libdem Identifier samples (the lowest and equal lowest unweighted samples respectively) as well and the equal lowest Labour Identifiers figure. It was the second smallest overallsample of the lot.
Are the Yougov panel getting bored with this tracker perhaps?
Anyway gotta run. Toodle Pip!
460:so tim, how do you feel about unite buying labour?
Question for you older folks. Was there ever really a golden age of air travel where all the cabin crew looked like models, or is that just a Hollywood creation?
O/T
Came back last night after four nights in Switzerland, flying with SleazyJet, I mean EasyJet, to Zurich. Flew from Gatwick and landed at Luton, two airports I have never used until this year (hitherto always Heathrow, with Stansted once).
Wasn’t that bad, except boarding the 737 at Zurich last night took absolutely ages. Food was at 1st Class prices, but it was only 90 minutes.
Southam Observer - pleased to hear that you (as someone on the left) are coming round to grammar schools. You’re right to identify the issues you do; personally I’m much more concerned about the second than the first. To some extent it’s just a matter of taking secondary moderns seriously: funding them properly and giving them the tools they need to do their job. This part of the job is relatively easy. You also need provision in place to ensure that the secondary moderns do not become sink schools, and that means not taking the problem of special needs and special behavioural needs children much more seriously. This is tougher, but given the will can be done. And the final part is changing the minds of everyone who thinks of a secondary modern education as an ‘inferior’ education rather than simply a differently tailored education. To some extent this can be addressed by the two measures I mention above, but only to some extent; changing the mindset of everyone who uses schools is a difficult task indeed.
78…They still do on Virgin…
473: Thanks. So instead of flying to Rome for a lovely dinner in the spring sunshine I’ll be sitting on a floor at Gatwick waiting for my plane to turn up from wherever those Unite bastards will have parked it.
I’m so looking forward to meeting my first Labour canvasser!
448 - Presumably the Council in the cheese rolling scandal is a Tory one?
For now.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2010/mar/01/conservative-councillor-mistaken-bnp-leader
Pimlico Plumbers off to Spain over 50p tax rate
http://waugh.standard.co.uk/2010/03/pimlico-plumbers-off-to-spain-over-50p-tax-rate.html
474 No amount of money would encourage me to enter an aircraft cabin dressed as an air stewardess, if SeanT was on board.
Unite (and their poodle the labour party) seem determined to destroy BA.
I flew twice on BA last month…20% occupancy both times, and cabin staff ignored us few inconvenient passengers (they spent the whole time talking about their latest gay dates)
My son is booked on BA 27th March (along with 12 work colleagues)so that is business that they will lose. Likewise I am in a group of people travelling BA in May (for work)when again there may be a strike…if the airline still exists, and my son has along haul flight in May as well .
Well done Charlie Whelan, we are proud of you
The weighted Labour Disloyal figure of 105 makes up around 6 per cent of the sample of 1747 but I would have thought this oversamples them considerably.
Labour lost 1.2 million votes between 2001 and 2005 (or 5.5 percentage points of their share) and the Lib Dems gained 1.1 million votes (up around 3.7 percentage points). This was on a turnout of 61.3%. If we count the 1.2m ‘lost’ Labour voters (who either voted for someone else or abstained) as disloyal labour (as I think YouGov do yes?) then that is 4.4% of the 27.1m who voted.
If one takes this as a proportion of those eligible to vote, which is what the wieghted sample is supposed to do, then the percentage of Labour disloyal would shrink to around 2.7% of an electorate of 43.7m (as it was in 2005).
The big fall in the Labour vote was between 1997, when they got 13.5m and 2001 when they got 10.7m.
Glorious Leader, joint press conference with Sarko, now on BBC news
In the only remotely scary thing to have happened to me on an aeroplane (4 engined plane loses one engine) the trolley dollies were the first and indeed only people to panic.
And someone I know who writes software for Boeing told me that the “brace” position is all very well but has nothing to do with increasing your chances of survival, it’s to preserve your teeth so as to make identifying your remains slightly easier.
484 - Do we think Charlie of Pimlico Plumbers has had a look at the Spanish building industry recently, or is after a bit of free publicity.
Charlie had been due to meet David Cameron this week, he says, but the meeting was postponed at the last minute.
I suspect the latter.
It’ll be Phil Collins next I guess.
Finally there has been an authoritative analysis of polling and pollsters by Stephen Colbert on his show last night. Well worth a watch as he interviews Scott Rasmussen after creating the “circle of meat” . Brilliant!
http://www.colbertnation.com/home
486 No one of sound mind books a flight with BA currently. Try getting insurance cover that will actually pay out, with the prospect of strike action.
Are there any plans for Labour to rebrand as the ‘Unite Party’? They might as well.
England to lose the World Cup.
489. I always assumed the brace position was an adaptation of the traditional advice, ‘put your head between your knees and kiss your arse goodbye’.
Thousands of (BBC) employees are eligible to go on the Making the Web Work for You day course, which costs £100 a time.
It includes information on how to use the popular social networking site, and others such as Twitter and Bebo.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/tvandradio/7427001/BBC-sends-staff-on-Facebook-course.html
All due to the unique way the BBC is funded…
490: tim, would still like to know how you feel about UNITE effectively taking over the Labour party.
Mr. Byrne has set an interesting policy and marketing test for the Tories. They can either choose option A, which is to get into one of their periodic fankles and panics, coming up with an over-complicated formula that sounds like “blah” to the electorate. Or they can go for B, and hit back with a simple and clear message on Labour’s tax pledge.
If they went for B they might say: “From the same people who guaranteed they had ended boom and bust, here comes another promise you can’t believe. Labour is so desperate it will makes pledges on tax it knows it can’t keep.”
Liam Byrne is a smartish chap. He’ll know all this, and on recent form I’ll wager he fully expects the Tories to choose option A.
http://blogs.wsj.com/iainmartin/2010/03/12/watch-liam-byrnes-lips-no-new-tax-rises/?mod=rss_WSJBlog
493 Morris Dancer
Does his curse still hold sway if he isn’t in No 10?
The simultaneous translation on News24 is awful. I’d rather just have a feed of the actual audio.
499 - Maybe they should have got Baroness Ashton to do it……ohhh wait….
498, we may find out.
England expects every man to do his duty.
RE:- “401.Here’s one for industrial relations experts. Is striking generally counter-productive for everyone other than the self-promoting union leaders?
I simply can’t see what the BA crew hope to achieve. The most likely effect is people stopping flying BA permanently and loads of redundancies.
by David Roe March 12th, 2010 at 12:46 pm ”
Striking is only ever about the Union Leaders, in my experience. All striking has ever done for me has cost me money, and enabled the Labour Government to turn me into a politically correct, box ticking, unable to think for myself, can’t-rescue-you-cos-it’s-dangerous, smoke detector installer, while our union swan off around the World enjoying the fruits of Marxist paradise! I’m still in the union, but only from a legal back-covering stand point-when management get stroppy, it’s better to be in than out!
SHOCKER! Labour’s biggest backer Unite to Strike - Gordon Brown says nothing.
Commenting on the decision by Labour’s biggest financial backer, the Unite union, to hold strikes at BA later this month, Shadow Chief Secretary to the Treasury Philip Hammond said:
“These strikes will cause misery for millions of travellers but the Government is looking the other way. Maybe it’s because Gordon Brown’s spin doctor is channelling millions from the striking union into Labour’s election coffers. Once again, the Prime Minister is putting his own narrow political interests of above those of the British people.”
The Prime Minister’s spokeswoman this morning refused to condemn the strikes:
“The Prime Minister would not want to comment on individual strikes. We hope a negotiated settlement is reached so that people do not have to go on strike. The Prime Minister has good relations with all the unions.”
http://dailyreferendum.blogspot.com/2010/03/shocker-labours-biggest-backer-unite-to.html
Despite all the arguments, I still fail to see the difference between ‘weighting’ and ‘lying’ in a poll. Surely if you have to ‘weight’ the results of your survey then all that does is own up to the fact your survey was flawed.
Clearly UNITE does wish to destroy British Airways. There can be no other rational explanation for large numbers of already overpaid aircrew going on strike when their employer is already in financial difficulties because they dont want to work harder like aircrew in more profitable companies. Surely the time has come for a government simply to outlaw strikes. If employees dont like the terms and conditions on offer from their employer they can leave and find other jobs.
I for one would now be very reluctant to fly with BA. They tend to be more expensive than other airlines, operate less flexible schedules and simply have not offered anything like value for money for years. For that reason I choose not to fly through London Airports and instead always head to Amsterdam and use it as my preferred hub for ongoing connections. KLM tend to operate timetables which suit me more, are less frequently (in my experience) delayed and have equally charming flight attendants. I just wish they would vary their limited in-flight menu from the “warm bagettes” containing plastic cheese.
@489:
It’s a very common urban legend about flying, it’s not true either. Similarly it’s also not true that the primary purpose of drop-down air is to make passengers sedate and accept their impending deaths calmly.
http://www.snopes.com/travel/airline/brace.asp
Of course everyone knows that the BA strike is a plot deliberately provoked by Cameron and his rich mates who run BA. They want to blackmail the electorate into voting Tory with scare stories about Unite taking over the Labour Party.
(Am I doing OK Ben and Lilly?)
451 - It really is a life-or-death job. You can’t put a price on human life, so they should all be paid at least £50k. Not to mention that they are putting their own lives on the line, too.
by Aaron March 12th, 2010 at 1:15 pm
There will be some 22 year old infantry section commanders who are looking forward to that definition of worth becoming the accepted norm.
506 Seriously never interleave your fingers even if you think you’re a gonna.
508: Those Trolley Dollies are dancing with death people!! Facing their maker in the face on a daily basis!!
Or not. Seriously.
In my experience BA cabin crew are a whole lot better than the ones you find on most other airlines - especially the American ones.
510 Worse, they have to serve SeanT tea!
471, Jonathon,
implicitly, you did. Richard noted that other airlines pay significantly less to cabin crew than BA. Your reply doubted the abilities of said cabin crew from other airlines, including “pay peanuts, get monkeys”
Virgin do pay significantly less than BA (from recollection, on the order of 30%+ less)
Richard therefore included them as an example of “other airlines”, which fit the “significantly less” criterion, but were obviously chosen as a respected airline.
Unless you include them in the “monkeys” category, it is therefore undeniable that you can pay significantly less without compromising passenger safety.
(PS -I hate posting on an iPhone. Note to self: change phone when contract is up)
510, hmm.
If this were the ancient world, I suspect the ringleaders would be nailed to the terminal walls and the workers told to stop being so bone idle or they’d end up the same way.
Not that I’m advocating that.
506. Every browser should come with a plug-in that automatically searches snopes for a highlighted piece of text.
Yeah! I’m sure.
http://www.thisislondon.co.uk/standard/article-23814807-george-osborne-will-go-quietly-if-fired-reveals-david-cameron.do
513 No sorry, Richard brought up Virgin after my post. Keep up. Do you really think Virgin pay peanuts? I don’t.
Talking of being on planes, also the education system, here’s a coincidence - Southam Observer are you still around?
I was flying back from Stuttgart on Wednesday with a load of kids from Southam College who had been on a German exchange visit it seemed. I think they were about 15 or 16 - could it be that one of your children was there?! Spooky.
They were pretty well behaved, and whilst any large group of excited teenagers is almost inevitably going to be slightly annoying after a long day, they were pretty much a credit to their teachers and parents, and I have certainly come across far worse. Feral chavs these were not!
Of course I would expect no less from people from Warwickshire
The thing is, didn’t UNITE get what it wanted last time it went on strike? I guess that’s why they are doing it this time as well. Willie Walsh needs to keep BA’s shareholders on side. If they think he is being unreasonable, then he will either have to compromise or stand down.
BA claims that stop-over perks mean its cabin crew earn around £29,900 compared to £20,000 at easyJet, £14,400 at Virgin Atlantic and £12,100 at bmi.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1235881/BAs-12-strikes-Christmas-Cabin-crew-action-hit-million-travellers-cost-500m–destroy-airline-says-boss.html#ixzz0hyE3f2Xt
503
” The Prime Minister has good relations with all the unions.”
They must leave the money on the bedside table…
513 No sorry, Richard brought up Virgin after my post. Keep up. Do you really think Virgin pay peanuts? I don’t.
by Jonathan March 12th, 2010 at 1:52 pm
Yet they have no problem recruiting staff. So Jonathan in BA staff overpaid shocker.
520 - To 517, so who in your opinion are these carriers that pay peanuts and thus get monkeys then?
510. Yes, I don’t know why the names of the air hostesses and stewards have made the ultimate sacrifice are not read out at PMQs each week. It would take too long, probably.
518 - That is very spooky. But no, my kids don’t go to Southam College, they go to a school in Leamington - but they are equally as well behaved, just like all kids from Warwickshire, except the oiks that go to Rugby, of course
iphone
“change phone when contract is up”
I was planning to buy one soon; it’s crap?
525
My brother-in-law went to Lawrence Sheriff in Rugby, he’s perhaps the next behaved person I have ever met, bit dull mind…
524 - And the tube drivers too. Don’t forget their justification for all their wage-increasing strikes is always “safety”.
443 Your hatred of Brown should not obscure the fact that Guthrie and Boyce have a vested interest in promoting arms sales because of their financial link to defence companies. The charge of hypocrisy can also be leveled at Guthrie because he stands accused of collaborating with Alan West over the hyping up of the WMD claim, prior to the Iraq War. Gordon Brown is far more suited to be the Prime Minister than Cameron, who has little experience and has already showed how unsteady he is on the important policy issues.
528, safety? Do they become violent if they aren’t parasitically gorging themselves on the taxpayer’s hard earned cash?
What do tube drivers get these days? I seem to remember it is north of £30k….
530: Hey…it’s tough having a button marked Start/Stop, and you have to practice saying ‘Mind the Gap’ a lot as well.
Lilly, you are absolutely correct, it’s the filthy warmongering generals who dragged this country into two wars just to get themselves seats on the board of an arms company.
There is no way that Brown can face any criticism when he was so obviously duped by the filthy warmongers.
Seriously, are you a bot or just thick.
Mirror sales fall 6% year on year
http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2010/mar/12/daily-mirror-abcs
532: http://www.backingblair.co.uk/london_underground/
Guardian falls 16.4% YoY; Times falls 16.9% YoY
http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2010/mar/12/february-abcs-guardian-falls
534 wibbler
still I’ll bet the CEO has had more than a 6% pay rise!
534 – I’m surprised Daily Mirror sales have not dropped further.
Who can forget their front page “Chocolate-Gate” exclusive…!
455. Oh look another Tory sockpuppet has come to defend one of his chums!
Now go away and learn the difference between a marginal tax rate and the total amount of tax paid on your whole income expressed as a percentage. Use one side of the paper only. No conferring.
Well if that’s what Aaron meant, then perhaps he should have made his point clearer. Because that was not what was stated in his post.
And of course, when we’re dealing with marginal tax rates, even at 60pc that’s an extra 40 pence per pound in one’s pocket that otherwise wouldn’t be there. Hardly worth crying about - unless you’re a total Tory misanthrope.
The Unite union is a public menace. Gordon Brown should stop acting as Charlie Whelan’s spin doctor and condemn the strike!
Newspapers are buggered. I wonder how many people under the age of 30 buy them these days. I just hope they keep going until I pop my clogs. The Times over breakfast during the week and the Oserver over the course of a Sunday are a little pleasure I would hate to have to give up.
Jonathan said: try doing it after 4 consecutive cross Atlantic flights and think how much you would want to be paid for it.
Wrong question. That is the socialist statist way round.
Better to ask: how much are you prepared to pay for those trolley dollies?
The answer is not as much as BA ask for at the moment which is why they are trying to cut costs.
Secondly, you ask: You should try evacuating a full 747 in panic mode listing at 45 degrees in under a minute before you tell me it is unskilled. No-one can do that if you mean after the plane ditches. Half the doors would be underwater. But you might remember a plane ditching in New York recently. Very effective cabin crew - not to mention fantastic piloting - do you think they are paid as well as BA crew? Do you think they have the same holidays and free ticket perks?
534, wibbler, is the lack of cash at the mirror the reason their website is being designed and run by a 12 year old. It has to be the worst designed site of any national company in the world.
540 - And what would that achieve?
So Lilly the bunker’s line today is that Guthrie and Boyce have called the Supreme Leader a liar and that has been proven to be true so they must be smeared by all you bots at every available opportunity.
519 - You can get what you want until you all lose your jobs.
**points to all the lovely towns in South Yorkshire and Wales**
We often talk about BNP vote share, but how high can the UKIP vote go before the Tories lose, 3, 4, 5%, even 8%?, and what immigration goodies will they offer to bring the doubters back to the fold? If UKIP did not exist then Cameron would win in a canter.
Maybe that is a key difference between 2005 and today.
Presumably labour will offer something as well to muddy the waters having done little in the last 13 years……
529. Um Lilly, Guthrie retired as Chief of the General Staff in 2001, two years before the Iraq War. I’m not sure you can susbtaitniate him hyping WMD before the Iraq War, cetrainly not from the inside anyway.
522,3 Blimey guys very flattered and all that that you crave my opinions on air stewards. At heart I just assert (as I did in my original post) that it is a skilled job and that I think it does deserve to be well paid mainly for two reasons. The calmness/fast reactions you need if things go wrong (that takes time and experience) and the physical demands it makes on you.
Sadly I haven’t had the opportunity to fly Virgin so can’t (and certainly didn’t) comment on their service, but I have always found BA to be of the highest quality and I really value that. Other airlines have made me nervous, mainly charter airlines. If I can, I fly BA. As such, I hope the strike is resolved soon.
542 - And do you think US airlines will be able to recruit that level of expertise and dedication in the future?
528 - Tube strikes can be about anything and I couldn’t support them. At least I can apply to be BA cabin crew if I want.
re 434 Jonathan and how mnay times would an average trolley dolly evacuate a 747 in their career. Once? Twice? And then if they’re so needed why do so many of them go to bed on long haul flights leaving you to fend for yourself? And do they really need free travel on BA?
434. Jonathan, what rubbish , they do almost the same as a waitress in a cafe, with a bit of safety training that most never ever have to put into practice. Overpaid and think they are special. When they are on jobseekers or working for Ryanair they will get the picture.
539 - As I point out at #438, you’d have to either be wilfully obtuse or stunningly thick not to have appreciated my original point referred to a marginal rate. Perhaps we could organise a PB survey to decide?
And a 60% marginal tax rate is certainly worth crying about. Firstly by those mug taxpayers who stay and pay it - why should the government confiscate over half of any extra earnings? And secondly by the country, since it is a clear disincentive to economic activity and an even clearer incentive for these who contribute most to the national coffers to emigrate.
547 redcliffe
I think UKIP have overplayed their hand. They have never been anything else but a pressure group on the Tories. Now they have become so embedded in Tory calculations they are probably irrelevant; indeed has pushed Dave more to the centre. I think Labour have more to fear from the BNP though, as people will admit to voting UKIP but are less likely to do so for Griffin’s crew.
re Cyclefree no sympathy I’m afraid. You knew they were going on strike again so you should have booked. with someone else and let BA go to the wall taking the strikers with it.
Tim is just about bearable, at least he can occasionally put up a solid argument but Lilly and Benboy are seriously beyond a joke, their controller should pull them back in for re-education
541 - I wouldn’t worry too much. Newspapers will be around for decades yet. Even papers that sell a few thousand copies can be profitable if well run. Any paper that sells 1m+ can still be a cash cow. It will be a while before the Mail and the Sun are below 1m.
What seems silly is the Mirror Group having two almost identical Sunday red-tops and the Independent and Guardian both existing for the same small group of liberals.
The Hudson River pilot retired recently and said this:
“There is so much pressure to hire people with less experience. Their salaries are so low that people with greater experience will not take those jobs. We have some carriers that have hired some pilots with only a few hundred hours of experience. … There’s simply no substitute for experience in terms of aviation safety.”
“Each generation of pilots hopes that they will leave their profession better off than they found it … In spite of the best efforts of thousands of my colleagues, that is not the case today.”
http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/world/2010-03/04/content_9536262.htm
And didn’t the BA pilot who steered his plane down when the engines failed last year also take early retirement?
BA is a pension scheme black hole which sometimes flies some planes.
The right salary for a job has precious little to do with the tasks involved. It is determined only by how many people want to do the job, i.e. supply and demand.
People are prepared to work at other airlines doing the same job for far less money. BA staff don’t know they’re born. If I was Willie Walsh I’d sack them all and readvertise the jobs at 2/3 the wages. In the current climate he’d have no problem getting applicants - it would be a pay rise for Virgin staff for example.
Wake up to the reality of modern Britain competing in the global market place - or go out of business. It’s that simple, and most industries have worked it out already. Grim but true and pretending otherwise won’t help anyone.
549: The overall level of skill is debateable. It’s hardly mentally taxing.
559: Yeah, but he’s talking about pilots, which is a skilled job..but then they get paid considably more as well.
552 - How many rowdy passengers will they have to pacify; how many ill passengers will they have to treat; how many dead bodies will they have to deal with; how many angry passengers will they have to placate; how many other ccompletely unanticipated yet worrying/dangerous/aggravating situaitons will they have to deal with?
All I know is that if I am on a plane and something goes wrong I want the best trained, most highly-motivated people possible to deal with it.
560 Jon C
isn’t it odd that Unite fund the two people who made the BA pension black hole even bigger ?
560 - If Willie Walsh wants a bog standard airline he should do all that you suggest and stop pretending that BA is a premium carrier.
I think a good Conservative party poster would be “The Labour Party: Sponsored by the Unite Union, A fair few more strikes for all”.
Labour are the party of strikes and high taxation.
ttp://blogs.notw.co.uk/politics/2010/03/unions-secret-marginals-campaign-could-outfox-the-tories.html
560 - Would you reduce teachers’ salaries now that there are more people applying to be teachers?
563: Since when does how much you pay them have to correspond with how well trained they are?
Would paying them more make them better trained, or better at their job? Not really.
Vote Labour for a fun fare ride on the double dip recession.
548 Please do your homework, Guthrie addressed the first ‘Iraq Media Management Group’ in 1998. Guthrie told the group that ,’You wouldn’t want to bomb a tank full of anthrax.’ WMD claims arose out of such comments.
On the BA strike, I imagine in some respects it’s not that easy a job. Dealing with the public in a cramped, confined space is always going to have occasionally difficult moments. Then there’s unsociable hours and long periods from home to consider. I wouldn’t fancy it.
That’s why I don’t do it. However lots of people happily do it for less money, which fatally undermines the union’s arguments.
As for BA themselves, I won’t really miss them. If they can’t run themselves properly, they have no divine right to exist. It’ll be a shame if they’re brought down by union aggression, but there are plenty of other airlines.
Why are Union firebrands almost invariably scousers?
554.
As I point out at #438, you’d have to either be wilfully obtuse or stunningly thick not to have appreciated my original point referred to a marginal rate
You got caught out making a dumb point and I used the open goal to show everyone what the effective overall rate is for someone earning £100K. 35pc is not that high.
And secondly by the country, since it is a clear disincentive to economic activity and an even clearer incentive for these who contribute most to the national coffers to emigrate.
Really? I don’t see many £100K plus earners leaving at the moment, do you? This is clear fantasy - where will these people go to? Most countries woth leaving for have similarly high “marginal” rates for high earners.
And do you really think individuals are disincentivised to earn £200K, £1M, £20M a year just because they only get 40p of every pound back at the top end of their salary? That is utter delusion.
I haven’t seen Stuart Dickson posting the Scottish subsample split from the latest Yougov/Sun poll
Lab 38 Con 22 LD 19 SNP 17
Perhaps this showing SNP in 4th will finally convince him that these regional subsamples are completely worthless .
Bote the voters sampled in this poll
Males over 55 oversampled by 38%
LibDems ID undersampled by 18%
Time for Yougov to get a panel more representative of the country as a whole .
Will Willie take on new staff and/or charter planes to try and break the strike?
http://business.timesonline.co.uk/tol/business/industry_sectors/transport/article7048743.ece
If he does not he might as well put BA into voluntary administration now and let somebody else see what they can salvage.
573 - Where is any evidence for these claims? Others have linked to Pimlico Plumbers moving, more hedge funds are opening in Switzerland than London. High earners are looking at other ways to get paid than by PAYE.
It is all happening. As for you earlier point that people should be grateful for any money the Government leaves them - that is perverse in the extreme. Government serves the people don’t you think, not the other way round?
Who are you? Many people ask and yet you never answer.
568, SO would at least stop giving them pay rises till I had trouble recruiting.
547. UKIP - as long as the result is close, I would imagine that UKIP will fall in behind cameron, no matter how angry they are about Cameron’s Caste Iron guarentee U-turn.
What is the alternative - a pro European Lib/Lab pact?
577.
Mind your own business is who I am.
Pimlico Plumbers?!! LoL!
Bankers not leaving? See here:
http://www.thefirstpost.co.uk/60628,business,london-bankers-halt-the-great-escape-to-geneva
The much trailed (hysterically so in Tory circles) exodus just hasn’t happened (much like the elusive currency collapse, or the unlikely-to-happen credit rating downgrade).
As for you earlier point that people should be grateful for any money the Government leaves them
No, that’s just you putting words in my mouth.
@580.
“And of course, when we’re dealing with marginal tax rates, even at 60pc that’s an extra 40 pence per pound in one’s pocket that otherwise wouldn’t be there. Hardly worth crying about - unless you’re a total Tory misanthrope.”