Is this why Cameron U-turned on nuclear power?
January 13th, 2008
Has Dave dumped his “nuclear a last resort” commitment?
Watching Andrew Marr interviewing David Cameron this morning I was struck at the ease in which the Tory leader has been able to change the party’s stance on nuclear power. From a position when he became leader of regarding this as a last resort he’s managed to move it so that the only issue is whether or not there is a taxpayer subsidy. Marr pressed him a couple of times but Cameron came out of this easily.
Looking at the polling numbers from today’s YouGov poll and it’s easy to see why. Tory supporters by quite a big margin are the biggest enthusiasts for nuclear power with a split of about 70-22 on the main issue. This compares with 63-25 for Labour supporters and 48-39 for Lib Dems.
Tony Blair used to single out Cameron’s hesitation to back nuclear power as a demonstration of the Tory leader’s inability to make the big decisions. My guess is that Brown was hoping to do the same following last week’s announcement.
An interesting question in the coming weeks will be whether what has been a big change in emphasis will do the Tories damage. Certainly if Brown has anything about him he should be able to exploit the Cameron’s move.
Mike Smithson
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Andrew Marr’s was not the only heavily hyped BBC interview of political leaders today. Here is the BBC’s transcripts of the Politics Show interviews:
report: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/programmes/politics_show/7176912.stm
Alex Salmond transcript: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/programmes/politics_show/7176919.stm
Wendy Alexander transcript: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/programmes/politics_show/7176917.stm
Whither Goldsmith, who has barely uttered a sentence since he was in shorts that did not totally oppose nuclear?
I think most people will have forgotten anything said in that regard previously.
2 - so Goldsmith will fall behind Cameron and support nuclear power? Come on, I thought he felt passionately in his opposition to it. Was he faking his passion?
Don’t know if it’s Cameron or Clegg that has the real problem with Nuclear power. Conservative & Labour voters look much the same (70% of Tory, 63% of Labour for, 22% & 25% against). Lib Dems though more evenly split (48% for 39% against) and with the most opposed.
Cameron doesn’t have a problem because Labour have said power stations will be put where there are already nuclear power stations (so little local opposition) and he can support nuclear while also supporting micro-generation, tidal, solars etc and attack Labour on their failure in 10 years to do anything on those, as say compared to Germany, which has delivered 11% renewables without grandstanding at G8 and pretending to lead the world while CO2 emissions grow.
Clegg though has to tread the line between a strong and vocal anti-nuclear activist membership and voters who tend to support it. As Conservatives know on Europe it’s those noisy single issue activists whose voices are heard.
When the facts change, I change my opinion, what do you do?
Opposing nuclear power is an old fashioned luxury - born of the lazy days before global warming, and before our oil began to run out, and before petrol prices shot up, and before Russia went weird on us, etc.
In the face of these changing facts, the British people have changed their mind about nuclear power; as have all sensible politicians, on left and right.
The trouble for Brown is that cannot attack Cammo on this, because the left is instinctively more antinuclear than the right. So he would expose himself.
Nuclear power is a non issue. We have to do it.
“Certainly if Brown has anything about him he should be able to exploit the Cameron’s move.”
I think we’ve all seen by now that the wretched, incompetent Brown has little or nothing about him.
David Cameron has been making more positive noises about nuclear power for months, Mike. With all due respect, the broad support given to last week’s statement by the Conservative party does not represent a big change in the position the party has taken over the last six months.
The Conservative position was never as hostile to new nuclear build as some commentators presented it as being: even Zak Goldsmith was always careful to make clear that DC did not share his anti-nuclear views. It has been obvious since last summer that the party was moving in the direction of recognising new nuclear build as part of a balanced energy policy - which, of course, also includes support for more decentralised power generation, more renewable energy, and energy saving.
During the run-up to last year’s local elections David told me in so many words that “We are not anti-nuclear.” His office agreed with me a form of words which could be used during the local elections to make this clear. Later he pointedly refused to reaffirm the “last resort” form of words.
At a nuclear industry fringe meeting at the 2007 Conservative party conference, Shadow Energy Minister Charles Hendry said that, to reduce the risk of political uncertainty making it difficult to get private investment in green energy, the Conservatives were making it clear to potential investors that an incoming Conservative government would honour contracts and commitments made by the present government to obtain new power supplies. The inference was that this applied over the range of power generation but that nuclear power was included in the pledge.
When the Quality of Life group investigated the issues about clean power generation, they would undoubtedly have discovered the same overwhelming arguments why new nuclear power plants should play a part in a balanced low-carbon energy policy for Britain as the government had. They will also have found that, as your survey and others have shown, the majority of Tory MPs, selected candidates, and voters all support nuclear power.
5 - I’m quite happy with the idea, and reality, of nuclear power, I hope that lib dem policy comes to reflect a more agnostic position based on how things are rather than how things would be in a perfect world.
Nimbys and non-nimby’s alike look at the despoiling of the countryside inherent in wind turbines and reckon nuclear looks a pretty good option.
DC would have known this as he has a higher % of nimbys than anyone else. Long term nuclear causes much less grief in the shires. They are all to be on existing sites allegedly.
I also wish the LDs would be less dogmatic. If Cameron will back the government on nuclear, that’s good - it does impress me. It is going to be an issue for Clegg… and Goldsmith. I hope he does not join the LDs over this!
“Certainly if Brown has anything about him he should be able to exploit the Cameron’s move.”
Media, momentum and his chronic inability to make political capital out of anything means that is unlikely. I’d expect Cameron’s approach to be the more popular as it [sort of] squares the circle between emnity towards the public purse supporting private concerns and their green conscience.
Zac Goldsmith is opposed to nuclear power but I heard him say in an interview around the time he was selected as Conservative cadidate for Richmond Park that he was absolutely convinced that no new nuclear power stations could be built in the UK without public subsidy. He claimed the economics just don’t add up.
Cameron’s position is that he will allow firms to go ahead, providing they get no financial assistance from the state. It seems to me that the Tory Party anti-nuclear brigade and its pro-nuclear advocates have found a free market solution that keeps them both happy.
I am in a rather odd minority on this issue: I am not really too concerned about the waste/safety issue (I trust scientists), unlike 71% of respondents to this survey.
What really concerns me is the arithmetic: nuclear is totally uncompetitive if the costs of decommissioning are included in the sums. Which of course is why Brown (and presumably Cameron) had to promise to heavily subsidise the utilities that take this on, and also to rig electricity prices at an artificially high level. Luckily Scots will escape most of this chain round the neck of industry and consumers (but we will only escape the rigged high prices upon independence).
Is Goldsmith a senior Tory?
Is an MP or party grandee?
Is he personally going to influence 10s of thousands of votes for or againt the Tory Party?
Therefore who gives a fiddlers?
The vast majority of voters don’t and they matter.
As regards the last thread, Gordon has prtoblems but the economy one is still to come and it looks like the ‘its fat Americans with bad mortgages’ line isnt going to wash. The Tory line of attack ‘why didnt you do some saving during the good times?’ is simple and will work.
10 I think the Lib Dems have more than a fair share of NIMBYs - at local level they
campaign against windfarms as much as anyone else. The problem is that many renewable projects bring out the NIMBY in all of us.
In Scotland there may well be no new Nuclear but who will support the Beauly to Denny Power project - despoiling the Highlands between Inverness and the Firth of Forth with huge towers bring the product of green renewable energy to central Scotland? Between Wales and England what will the RSPB and other conservation organisations really do about the Severn Barrage proposal as the tidal mudflats of the Bristol Channel are disrupted for ever?
Pathetic responses up until now…. Of course Cameron switched because of opinion polls. He had never done anything else in his life….
Going for nuclear power is the short-term answer (though posing as long-term) of a short-term government, which has lost all sense of vision or whatever they choose to call it nowadays.
This Brown-Labour government is headed straight on a course of destruction - for the Labour Party, for the nation, for the world - and all that Cameron is capable of saying is “Me too”…..
Tories are no use to anybody.
Well here comes a non-apologetic, non-dogmatic, but totally anti-nuclear Lib Dem. Not sure why everybody is coming out with this stuff about “modern nuclear, having to accept” etc. If anything the case against is even stronger now. With the dangerous implications of terrorism and sea level rise threatening those sites where nuclear stations will be placed, adding to the well-documented, long term safety issues of disposal. I do accept it is less likely that catastrophic failure of reactors likely now, but that has never been the biggest issue. There are, we know, long term health risks in the regions of nuclear stations (cancer clusters, affected employees etc).
And one of the great claims now - that we can “fill the gap” that may start as early as 2015 with nuclear is not true, because large scale investment in both energy conservation and renewables is likely to get there first. Delays on power stations, on historical experience are quite likely to take first installation to 2021, or even 2024, rather than the 2017 optimistically claimed by the industry. And the likelihood of effective opposition just rolling over seems close to nil!
PS. IIRC, opinion polls were largely in favour of the illegal war in Iraq, at the time.
And so were the blasted Tories….
Now they repent…..
And so they will again….. That is what Tories are for…. Being wise after the event….
15 Yokel, entirely agree about the economy. If Brown really was so “prudent”, he would have something put by for a rainy day. That will resonate.
On nuclear power, has Brown been a vociferous pro-nuclear power advocate all his political life? If not, then Cameron has nothing to worry on this issue. Cameron should, though, major on saying that under his Government, Britain will have the most thoroughly enforced regulation in the world. No more cutting corners or falsifying documents in our nuclear industry.
19 - some nice sweeping generalisations there, well done.
And, John W, what opinion poll evidence and historic experience of this shows that a wind farm near you is a heck of a lot less unpopular than a nuclear power station!
Hear Hear Tressage! The unreality of this debate is getting to me!
Yokel, the problem is that if the economy doesn’t go as bad as Cameron makes out it reinforces Gordon’s image as a safe pair of hands and the tories as not understanding the economy.
The economist said that the government was being a bit hard on itself with the current predictions, and the tories are saying it will be worse than the current predictions. As a long term thing the economy could bite the tories in the a*se. Specially as the current problem was caused by too much free market liberalisation and weak regulation, which the tories have an idealogical link to.
How many times have the Tories predicted recession since May 1997? However, this time it may well happen.
Tim @ 18,
Nuclear industry lobbyists have warned about the risk of intensifying the green house effect for the best part of forty years. What you are describing is the striking success which their opponents have followed in practicing Sir Humphrey’s four step blocking strategy. Stage one (40 years ago): there is no problem, because there is no serious increase in C02. Stage two (30 years ago): we should not do anything, because increased C02 will head off the next ice age and will boost the agricultural productivity of the green revolution. Stage three (15 years ago): maybe there is a problem with C02, but we shouldn’t build any more nuclear power stations. Stage four (now): maybe we should have built more nuclear power stations, but it’s too late now.
Tim 13, Wind farms are both much bigger and on new land. We are told (!) that the nuclear stations will be on existing sites.
Its personal I know but the Lammermuir hills south of Edinburgh are now completely blighted by great big turbines. It is not as if they generate much energy
It seems you can do what you like to the countryside in the name of either housing or anti - global warming.
So nuclear for me
18 Did you see the Secret Nuclear Talks piece in the Independent?
http://news.independent.co.uk/uk/politics/article3333864.ece
While I tend to the pro-nuclear side I am concerned when I read
“no official records were kept of the discussions with the companies, which stand to profit from Gordon Brown’s announcement last Thursday”
“The Government initially tried to block details of the meetings”
“Between February and October 2006, Mr Norris met on three occasions with the EDF UK chief executive, Vincent de Rivaz, and Pierre Gadonneix, the chairman. Mr Brown’s brother, Andrew, is EDF’s head of media relations.”
Just as Mr Brown let the economy run riot without thought of what would happen if times got hard. Mr Blair spent 10 years lecturing the world on Climate Change while doing nothing in terms of investing in clean coal, carbon sequestration, wind and tidal, micro-generation etc so we will be faced with increases in coal and gas power generation between 2015 and 2025 until new nuclear comes on stream. Mr Bush has done more in US than Mr Blair did in UK.
Large scale investment in energy conservation - from where? Brown can’t fund it from public spending, it won’t happen.
Renewables - where’s the return for investors? Not there yet. Again Brown can’t afford the subsidies necessary to get it going. Germany achieved their 11% through an effective subsidisation program and through guaranteeing prices for micro-generation (solar sell back to generators etc.), UK could have done the same but Government support very limited.
Nuclear IMHO has to have a place as wind, tidal, solar are not dependable enough - on dark winter days with North Sea storms raging the wind turbines are stored for safety, sun isn’t there and tidal is a tiny contributor. Efficient and effective carbon sequestration would be nice to have but isn’t ready yet; we can’t afford to wait.
25 Alan Agree about long term nature of this problem - I remember learning about this issue 40 years ago as a student. Tried to be a committed environmentalist ever since (not always easy)
26 John Agree that there have been some pretty (sorry, NOT pretty!) ruinous schemes around. I do feel, though, that the despoliation caused by smallish schemes, such as most of those in Cornwall is no greater (if as great as)than pylons. There are also some great advances in the pipeline on solar generation. Compared to Germany our use of solar is tiny, and ought to be greater.
23. Its a matter of balancing the attack.
Attacking the governments willingness to do not much else other than spend is a singular line of approach. saying every economic woe is the gopvernments fault is useless and untrue.
The government is tightening its belt, something I acknowldged on here months ago but the evidence is that they will overshoot their borrowing by a fair margin, again.
The difference between a major slowdown and a full on recession is actually pretty thin at this time. Both are a problem obviously. The issue is what levers the government has to see the economy through the more difficult period. By having a profiligate spending attitude and a rising tax burden the government has denied itself of having some of those levers to pull without potentially doing more damage. Thus more than likely they’ll be sitting with crossed fongers in No10 & No11 that it won’t be so bad, much more than they should be.
24. Its odd that back in August I was on this forum banging on about possible economic difficulties and the best answer any Labour supporter could come up with was I jealous of Gordon Brown. Fingers in ears and eyes shut and feckin pathetic.
Who’d want to deny times are about to get a little tougher now?
No one.
Luckily Scots will escape most of this chain round the neck of industry and consumers (but we will only escape the rigged high prices upon independence). ”
Perhaps I’m wrong, but I was under the impression that nuclear power does generate a substantial proportion of Scottish energy.
Completely OT but does anyone know when Betfair are going to start opening their markets on midweek Premiership matches?
Good to see the party catching up with the Membership at last !!
Alright, alright, only teasing.
Genuinely pleased to see Common sense breaking out though with the adoption of this policy though.
Safety will always be a concern but it really is a no-brainer is we are serious reducing CO2 (which I am)
18. Tim, none of the anti-nuclear lobby have ever been able to produce statistically significant evidence of a health risk near nuclear power stations. The alleged clusters represent extremely small absolute numbers of cases - to be precise, usually single figure numbers.
In fact study after study of the life expectancy and health of employees of the nuclear industry comes out with better figures than the national average figures for people of the same age and in comparable jobs. This is probably because nuclear power stations tend to be located in coastal sites well away from major cities and therefore their employees are less exposed to the pollution and other health hazards of an urban lifestyle.
You are likely to expose yourself to more radiation from naturally occuring rocks if you move to rural Cornwall than you will receive from the nuclear industry if you move near Sellafield or Drigg. (And before someone from Cornwall accuses me of running down their county, the number of rads in both cases is way below the levels which have been shown to have any effect on health.)
The question of how we deal with nuclear waste is an immensely important issue, but we will have that problem whether we have new nuclear build or not. The new generation of nuclear plants produce much less radioactive waste than earlier stations did, so the amount of waste we will have to deal with will only increase by about 10% as a result of a new fleet of reactors.
And before you accuse me of wanting new nuclear build in other people’s backyards, I am an elected representative of the community whose area contains the vast majority of Britain’s nuclear waste. There isn’t a single borough or County councillor in the Copeland local authority area who does not support a new local nuclear plant, and the fact that the Lib/Dems nationally are anti-nuclear is the main reason that Copeland council is a Lib/Dem - free zone.
Alan Peakall at 25 is absolutely right about the blocking strategy being followed by anti-nuclear voices including Tim here: first they try to delay new nuclear build using the planning system and the courts, then they argue that because of all the delays the stations cannot be ready in time.
It’s like the old joke about the man who murdered both his parents and then, as sentence was about to be pronounced, pleaded for clemency on the grounds that he was an orphan.
Yokel - what strikes me though is that for all your doom laden warnings (there have been several) just how resilient the UK economy is. This is macro stuff, and a combination of everything that has happened since 1976 (six not nine), but even so it continues to atonish me.
I assume a lot is due to the fact that apart from financial services we are no longer dependent on a few sectors which if affected then affect everyone - like cars used to.
Retail is such a flexible animal that even in hard times it will reshape itself and respond.
We are in for a tough year, but still a modest problem, not 1981 all over again
29. My economics text book has several things to say on this issue:
1. Government spending during periods of recession is good, increases consumption and can prevents market confidence from being completely undermined.
[GDP = Consumption + Investment + Government spending + Trade balance, If government spending stops, it may aid the decrease of GDP]
2. As any business will borrow and spend money on the expectation of increased future profits, so will government. An expansionary fiscal policy is no indicator of a bad government policy, look at the areas that it’s being spent on not the fact of expenditure itself
3. Taxes act as a stabilisers. A large tax burden can be helpful to an economy in a situation of recession while a hindrance in terms of a boom, it’s one of the tradeoffs of an economic policy.
34. Go through the archives and reproduce the ‘doom laden’
Go on…
Yokel - oh and the tough year in 2008 for me means election in 2010.
Cooke’s law notwithstanding, GB will have had not enough time to get his ratings back. This was Wilson’s problem in 1970.
Incidentally, is it me, but for all the NuLab policies that Gordon comes out with, he still sounds Old Labour. It is his tone of voice and base principles. In which case 30-32% in the polls is about right
34. Just to add, go reproduce how many times i said we were going into recession……
Yokel - you are always going on about how “it all end in tears” to quote John Laurie in Dad’s Army
I see you as a John Laurie-esque figure frowning at the foolhardy spendthrifts that run the country
Going Nuclear is an interesting concept, personally i think that building a series of massive Hydroelectric barrages would be better.
Due to the UK’s geography and the propenderence of places like the Severn, Mersey and thames esturies to name but a few. Huge investment in barrages would be effective. They would probably have a greater lifespan than Nuclear stations and provide clean, green power that is “predictable”. There would be no Toxic legacy and the wildlife could adapt. Another side effect may be to enable a control on large spring tides to avoid flooding.
Gutted: France beat the UK in the economic stakes.
http://www.mailonsunday.co.uk/pages/live/articles/news/worldnews.html?in_article_id=507916&in_page_id=1811
40 I think Hutton looks all but certain to green light the Severn Barrage. Absloutely colossal project incl road/rail link between Somerset and S Wales. So if they say ten years and 8 Billion make that twenty and 16 Billion then..
35. Thats not what most business do G, they tighten overall, the government is trying to tighten overall so they seem to be ignoring the textbooks. They may continue investment spending but overall they tend to tighten in real terms be it through slowing the rate of increase of spending or just plain cutting it.
Secondly government do tend to increase spending, partially because they have no choice due to things like higher unemployment etc as well as trying to provide some kind of fiscal stimulus. That government spending as a proportion fo GDP increases during difficult times is fact and indisputable and I havent at any point suggested otherwise.
In fact if you read what I was saying my point was that the government’s failure to resource for difficult periods means that they cant easily provide stimulus such as increase spending (or reduce tax burdens for business or consumers) without a) increasing borrowing (which has to be serviced), b)(where they cut taxes) cutting spending (which you have suggested is not the done thing), raising the tax burden which no economics book will tell yuou is a great idea or d) a combo of all 3.
Is that a bit clearer now?
On the topic, I agree with those who said that this is a bigger problem for Clegg than for Cameron. Cameron’s new pro-nuclear position is supported by most of his voters and activists, and his previous sceptical one will be soon forgotten; Clegg, on the other hand, faces the difficulty of reconciling the strongly anti-nuclear views of Lib Dem activists with the pro-nuclear ones of their more general supporters.
I’m in the latter group, myself - I think that nuclear power has to play its part in our energy production, particularly with the urgent need to reduce our carbon emissions, since we simply can’t rely on renewables to provide all of it. Nuclear power is far from perfect, but not using it would only make matters worse. This is the only major area where I disagree with Lib Dem policy, and I just wish one of the candidates in the recent leadership election had stood for it; instead, both candidates took a position which is apparently opposed by 48% of Lib Dem voters.
39. You know you cant John and resort to nothing so forget the cartoon imagery.
You couldnt back it up. Congratulations on your failure or just plain lack of substance to your argument.
We can cut this argument anyway you want and either look back at my postings to prove your point which you won’t or you can make it personal, which just proves your point has no support.
Either way you’ll lose.
Now make up your mind what way you wish to go. Go prove, keep it personal and insubstantive and thus fail or drop it because the first two options wont get you anywhere.
44 TBH I think the whole thing means little for all Parties save in positioning terms
42. True but i think it is that sort of project that should take premienence over Nuclear - Sure top up the Nuclear side of things but the Barrage is a natural resource landlocked countries cannot use. We can!
I really do think other projects should be looked at pronto - their is no decommisioning cost that i am aware of with these things. Of course maintence has to be ongoing but it does with Nuclear and their is no hazzardous material left over!
I am far from anti-nuclear as i think Nuclear bombs are a good thing! (Gosh i sound like the bloke in Dr Stangelove waiving his hate whilst sitting astride a nuclear bomb!) I also think Nuclear power is a good thing but one has to take a holistic approach to these things.
In defence terms Nuclear power stations are a bad thing as they are a prime target for attack. If the Commies had attacked us in the cold war - Nuclear power stations would be a prime target due to their ability to provide power and spread “dirty” nuclear material that decayes less quickly than when a Nuclear bomb explodes due to half lifes etc.
43. Much clearer thanks.
46. True. I sincerely doubt that Nick Clegg’s position on nuclear power would make any difference whatsoever to whether or not we will get a new series of nuclear power stations, which is entirely the decision of one Mr. G. Brown. Like you say, it’s mostly just symbolic.
48. Sound.
I should have detailed the tax up, borrowing, up, spending down combo in my original posts but I’ve done it so many times on here that I didnt bother my arse this time.
My fault for assuming everyone reads my posts, files them away and remembers them which would be self flagellation of the cruelest kind.
47 I just mean’t this Country seems congenitally incapable in recent years of delivering any major Civil engineering project on time and on budget whatever, with the possible exception of St Pancras and that is disputed after the Government bail out. We need to dig up Brunel and clone him quick. Our present architects are but the palest of shadows
No for attack I don’t think so 2 or 3 at Major Cities would have been quite enough to wipe this Country off the map of the Planet. I’d worry more about Chernobyl than Dr S
35.
(1) But a high tax burden or an increase in national debt (one of which is required to increase spending) causes the “Investment” portion of that equation to decline, especially in the medium to longer term. This part is often forgotten.
(2) Actually you need to look at both. All expenditure will have negative general effects on the economy (see 1), although (as you say) some expenditure will also have positive effects due to the improvements it causes. Policy makers simply have to weigh up whether the specific advantages are larger than the general negatives in each case.
(3) Surely, the reverse is true? In a recession, you want to encourage invesment to kickstart the economy again, so you reduce taxes. In a boom, you may want to tax more to make up for the discrepancy during a recession.
33.
“none of the anti-nuclear lobby have ever been able to produce statistically significant evidence of a health risk near nuclear power stations”
Not as long as they don’t blow up. Tell that to the people who lived near Chernobyl, Browns(sic) Ferry, Three Mile Island! Wings and prayers come to mind.
The Nuclear industry are as a whole pathologically incapable of telling the truth, whether it is in respect of dumping waste down a Dounreay mineshaft, the connection with the nuclear weapons industry which spawned them, the extent to which nuclear fuel cycle is dependent upon greenhouse gas-guzzling hydrocarbon usage at all stages, the ghastly Thermal Oxide plant with no purpose, etc etc etc They make Tony Blair seem honest by comparison. Perhaps the biggest nuclear lie (known so far anyway) in Britain was the famous head end fire at Windscale where those concerned panicked and dealt as best they could with high levels of radiation locally which they discovered, and announced to the surrounding populace that these levels were related to the fire and hence ‘now under control’ - whereas actually they were largely nothing to do with the fire but due to other underlying elements of the ‘normal’ process.
As for your waste disposal argument: “We’re up shat creek without a paddle, let’s head further up the creek”, this is of course a marvellous bit of Tory logic. Poor Olly Goldsmith. Should have stuck with Uncle Teddy and kept away from these nasty Tory political people.
jsfl @ 185. (taken piecemeal to fox the swear-filter)
Yes, basically the Swingometer and the simulator use a similar approach, but implemented slightly differently.
The Swingometer
http://www.titanictown.plus.com/Swingometer.rar
follows the probabilistic methodology of Curtis and Firth, pp10-11
http://www.rss.org.uk/pdf/CurticeFirthOct2007.pdf
although they appear to use a standard sigma of 4 for all parties. I use a sigma of 3.6 for Con, 4 for Labour and 4.3 for LD. The differences are minimal, but model the Tory change as being slightly more even than the others, and the LD’s change as slightly more variable - which is usually the case.
52. (3) is to do with what economists call the “multiplier” this is that a change in spending will have knock on effects, low taxes mean a higher “multiplier” causing greater positive knock on effects in a boom and greater negative effects in a bust.
51.
You are right about civil engeenering projects - maybe it is the planning system to blame? It cannot be so hard to organise things to complete on time if the will is there!
The decisions have been left a bit late in the day. We could well be in recession this year. If the contracts had been signed a few years ago - huge projects such as the severn barrage would have stimulated the economy in the same way as Hitlers autobahns. Brown could still emulate hitler now! (I will not mention Brown having the same nose as Hitler though! Brown is not related to the mitford sisters is he?).
Sorry for being a party pooper but I would be delighted to debate this issue with David Cameron.
He needs to research the topic further.
Nuclear power is not the answer to climate change. – in fact, even if we doubled the amount of nuclear power in the UK there would only be an 8% reduction in greenhouse gases. It is neither carbon emission free nor would new power stations come on stream for at least ten years. It threatens the environment and people’s health. No safe solution has yet been devised to store its carcinogenic toxic radioactive waste, some of which is dangerous for thousands of years. It also leaves us vulnerable to the possibility of nuclear accidents or even terrorist attack.
A safe energy mix of renewable energy sources, cleaned up fossil fuels and energy efficiency measures – all of which are safe, effective and proven technologies - are available now. And it is not an impractical fantasy: Germany, a massively industrial power, is closing its nuclear power station and moving towards reliance on a non-nuclear mix.
53 I can’t recall there being a Chernobyl-type disaster in this country. I think it unlikey that any democratic country would allow a nuclear power station to be maintained in the way that Chernobyl was, or be so cack-handed in dealing with such a situation.
57. No energy production or harnessing process is Carbon emmision free. Take windpower - A massive amount of energy has to be “invested in creating” the wind device, moulding and smelting the column, blades and other paraphanler. Then you have to get the Wind Terbing in place. In the penines they used *environmentally freindly* helicopters!!!!
52. (1) It depends where the tax burden falls, e.g. capital gains tax. Reducing these kind of taxes obviously has a positive effect during a recession.
I’m unclear on the relationship between national debt and investment, so can’t comment on the other parts.
57. Maybe the Lib Dems should lead on the green agenda by ceasing producing bar graphed letters, banning Opek from using his plane and a moritorum on LD ballons?
The Swingometer uses Curtice and Firth’s formula to calculate probabilities of winning for each party in each seat, and the central probabilistic forecast is the sum of those probabilities.
17
‘This Brown-Labour government is headed straight on a course of destruction - for the Labour Party, for the nation, for the world - and all that Cameron is capable of saying is “Me too”…..’
Tressage,I guess the main point is that unlike you,Brown and Cameron live in the real world.
57. “No safe solution has yet been devised to store its carcinogenic toxic radioactive waste, some of which is dangerous for thousands of years.”
Might as well pay African countries to let us build and run storage facilities there. The Sahara isn’t good for much else.
180 (previous thread) Labour aren’t done for yet, not by a long chalk…
by RodCrosby January 13th, 2008 at 3:13 pm
I totally agree Rod, I’ve bought Labour Seats today with Sporting Index at 171 and I reckon the downside from that position is considerably less than buying the Tories at above 300 seats, but that’s just my opinion…. you pays your money and you takes your choice!
This differs from the UNS swing forecasts, in that it takes into account the variation in the distribution of the marginals.
The Swingometer can show the differences between the uniform forecast and probabilistic forecast, and also models a LD incumbency effect (not all one way - they do badly where an MP stands down) and regional swings, and adjustments for the Nats, NI, etc..
Your experiments with the simulator
http://www.titanictown.plus.com/electsim.xls
are correct in that the 95% confidence intervals for Con and Lab are about +/-10 seats from the central forecast, and for LibDems about +/-6 seats. These are calculated by Swingometer, but not shown in the release version.
The simulator defaults to “standard” LD incumbency, no regional swings, and uses the Excel NORMDIST function to generate actual random changes for each party in each seat, using the sigmas described above (and the overall inputted changes as the average changes).
I suppose the point must be made that both programs treat the user entered overall %vote shares for each party as if they were the ACTUAL overall outcomes. A subtle distinction, but opinion or exit poll figures inject an additional degree of uncertainty into the equation, in that they would be unlikely to exactly predict the actual overall vote shares.
In terms of Butler swings, the party change sigmas produce a swing sigma of about 2.5%, which accords with the long-term average in British elections. It might be nearer 3.0% at the next election, because of uncertainty in the boundary changes. The 2.5% sigma means that 95% of swings will be within about +/-5% of the average, which accords with the historical data.
I’ll try and merge these two programs into one package in the future.
If you have any more questions please ask..
More sleaze:
C4 documentary puts Livingstone on rack
Jamie Doward
Sunday January 13, 2008
The Observer
Ken Livingstone was under pressure last night to answer a series of incendiary claims that put the Mayor of London’s personal and public life under intense scrutiny. Lawyers representing Channel 4’s flagship documentary programme, Dispatches, have given Livingstone till Wednesday to respond to a number of accusations before the programme is broadcast next Monday.
Livingstone’s supporters last night launched a ferocious riposte to C4, accusing it of ‘unlawful interference’ in the run-up to the mayoral elections. The Dispatches programme, which has been a year in the making and is fronted by the political editor of the New Statesman, Martin Bright, asks what happened to tens of thousands of pounds of London Development Agency cash.
Completely O/T but given the debate we had yesterday about the 2009 Euro elections, I’ve posted a predictor for them here
http://www.cabg05071.pwp.blueyonder.co.uk/Euro_predictor_2009.xls
It assumes that the Lisbon treaty is ratified and UK loses seats as per the Electoral Commission’s recommendations.
55. The Keynesian multiplier effect is doubtful in reality as Keynesian economics (at least the mathematical side of it) generally ignored the effect of tax and government spending (and the difference between them) and interest rates on investment.
re 70 I forgot to say that it uses a Baxter swing
69 Re: Channel 4 “Dispatches” Programme “…what happened to tens of thousands of pounds of London Development Agency cash.”
Isn’t this the same story as was running in the Evening Standard a couple of weeks ago?
From previous thread…
“36 for the LDs? A tad too low perhaps?”
That’s with the LDs on 16%, AND assuming some incumbency effect. Make no mistake if that pans out in a GE with the Tories on about 40%, the LDs will lose a shedload of seats…
“19 for Nats? surely that would entail a collapse in the Labour vote in Scotland, and so would pehaps entail a lower share even in England?”
The Nats is PC and SNP combined. The notionals give PC 2 SNP 6, the model (on the current polls) gives PC 5, SNP 14, although it’s indeed uncertain how region swings would pan out…
“Btw-3 others? Kidderminster, Blaenau, Respect? A resurgent Tory party should retake Kidderminster. Labour could regain Blaenau and the Respect seat, or it could lose another to Respect…”
It’s only a central forecast, and the sui generis nature of the Others makes it hard to predict. It could indeed be none, more likely 2. Only a fool would bet the farm on any outcome.
55 Please tell me you are not claiming any substance to the theory of the Public Sector Multiplier effect? if so please get an up to date text book on economics. Going by your other posts you are an enthusiastic but ill informed student of the dismal science.
Do your reading, ask some questions and then you will develop an understanding of why Brown’s splurging of money is in danger of creating some major structural problems.
Thanks to whomever gave the Murray tip a few days ago, I’m now all green on the Australian Open market.
75. Not only my textbook but my economics tutors claims substance to it.
http://www.chch.ox.ac.uk/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=461
http://www.chch.ox.ac.uk/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=640
You’re more than welcome to try arguing your point with them, i won’t argue with you.
71, The Keynesian multiplier is based on stimulating an economy where there is too little demand. What exists in the UK at the moment is too much demand and too little production. This imbalance has been allowed to develop for some time as the UK was funded for some time by international investors. Gordon Brown has decided to use the exchange rate mechanism as the main way to make the adjustment. This will cut demand for foreign products such as German cars and holidays in the sun. Even if people buy less of these the impact on the economy is marginal.
I’m all for nuclear power as long as they site them in the one place that deserves them: Cornwall!!
I love this we don’t need a subsidy statement, from the big energy companies, we’ll build ‘em with our own money. Yeah! in a pigs eye they will. You can see what will happen, they’ll build half, then it’ll be, ‘Oh dear! we’ve run out of money, tut tut, we won’t be able to finish it, unless we get help from the government’
The help from the government, will mean lots-n-lots of taxpayers money going into the pockets of the Russians and French who by then will have us by the short-n-curlies.
Nuclear is the only option. We MUST be self sufficient in energy to avoid this country being held to ransom!!!
From revious thread, Mike Smithson.
“re 180. Rod. I don’t understand how the maths of your model works compared with Baxter or Wells. You always produce figures which produce better numbers for Labour.” You’d have to give me a specific example, Mike, for me to respond to. I use a central probabilistic forecast, not UNS, and certainly not Martin Baxter’s weird method. Also, I include the Nats as being roughly up 15% in Scotland, and an estimate of LD incumbency. If anything, I’d expect this to depress the Labour seats versus the other two methods, but I’d need a specific example to answer fully…
“Given that last time Labour did about 30 seats worse than the UNS model perhaps you might elucidate.” Labour did 14 seats worse (which is 28 on the lead or majority.) John Curtice identified the causes of this as being: an exceptional LD performance worth about 5 seats, maybe 2 seats due to the Tories doing well in London; and the rest probably down to the non-uniformity in the seat distribution. My “central probabilistic forecast” addresses the latter problem (which appears to be less of a problem anyhow on the new boundaries)
Your swear filter doesn’t like the URL for the Curtice paper..
I’ve just had this ‘orrible thought, Say GB announced the siting of the first Power staion and it was in, ‘Witney’ would Dave support it! Do the property prices a power of good!
Are you suggesting Cameron is just another opportunist politician? Incidentally wasn’t it funny when Jane Moore said to Cameron on Marr’s show ‘what we want from our politicians is that they have the same backgrounds as the rest of us and live the same lives. Not people who put on a show’.
How we laughed!
82 i love your cynical thought process but unfortunately GB couldnt find witney on a map if you paid him. his arse and elbow appear to be elusive enough as it is…….
Your swear filter doesn’t like the URL for the Curtice paper..
http://www.
britishpollingcouncil.
org/
john-curtice
.pdf
84
Its what I would do, on the other hand Richmond-on-Thames, (good cooling water there) that would be even better, lets see Zac wear that one!
82 If the quid pro quo is the demolition of the Didcot power station (coal-powered), it would be a fair deal. The prevailing winds would mostly drop fall-out on LibDem seats in Abingdon and Oxford anyway. Result!
87 - HAHAHAHA oops i mean oooh dear we wouldnt want to pollute the LDS then would we? Anyway next time those seats will be back where they belong ie CON
83 - So she wants to have politicians who have Elton John as best man at their wedding and whose father was a professor of Maths at Oxford then? What gives her the right to preach to me as a journalist (for The Sun of all things)? People in glass houses etc….
How we laughed (and this time with no little irony)!
86 but would his brother have bought property/greased local councillors in witney to smooth the path of nuclear planning applications? no thought not. but i gtee you gordos bro will be well connected in sizewell, bradwell etc.
maybe thats how hain became so orange………..
What about the LABOUR PARTY’S U-Turn? A few years ago their formal policy was that Nuclear Power was unecessary!
This site really should avoid economics.
87
Didn’t they convert Didcot to gas? Nice clean fuel, which of course we have wasted, since the disasterous privatization of our energy industry.
re 214 previous thread. Yes Trevor you’re right the NHS pension contributions are going up from 6 to 6.5% in April so that will wipe out a fair chunk of my tax saving.
92. I do apologise, I have learnt my lesson now though.
We just for fun went on the solar site calculator, and if we wanted to produce all the power by solar for our little house here in the Twin Cities MN, we would need to spend around $32,000 and take 25 years to recoup the cost - yikes - with subsidies I think we can knock it down to around $24,000 ……
77 an Oxford boy - that explains all. The logical fallacy shouldn’t need to be explained but it’s basically this - if the government can achieve a multiplier effect greater than that achieved by the private sector then the economy is best run when it is 100% state controlled.
of course ‘lay a thousand economists end to end……’ etc but I wouldn’t put blind faith in the Marxist dribblings of Oxford’s economics tutors - some faith, they’re intelligent thinkers after all; but misled by their own desire to control - get yourself off to Liverpool or Cardiff for the more sane side of the story.
83 - this was the Jane Moore who asked Alan Duncan on QT how he met his wife…
68. Rod,
Thanks for the replies. All very informative. As you probably recall I am one of those that believe the ‘English affect’ is potentially significant. I note it does not take account of regional variances. Given the wide variance in some parties support in each of the home nations (particularly the Conservatives)it perhaps might give a slightly clearer picture of what might happen.
I’ve tried putting the notional English figures through the simulator but of course it gives considerably distorted results for the Scots and Welsh results (as it would if you used another Home Nations figures)
I realise your not its greatest fan but on reflection would it not enhance the simulator if you were able as an option to enter seperate poll figures for each of the three home nations instead of just the national figure? Effectively all this does is treat the three home nation elections as separate entities.
From a coding perspective (using my somewhat dated knowledge) by allocating the constituencies to their home nations I imagine it would be quite straightforward to input. Of course you could further complicate it if there are weighting factors that come into play (are their?).
As an option, it might provide further interest to the simulator allowing more complex modelling?
65. You could be right, PtP.
Even useless Kinnock got 271 for Labour in 1992.
Wilson in 1970 got 287. Although the third party is now a lot stronger, of course.
But, unless the Tories are about 6% ahead on polling day Labour should get at least 271 seats…
65 Oops, I should have referred to having bought Labour seats with Sporting Index today at 271, instead of at 171 (I wish!)
NUKE CAMERON - My take is that Cameron’s pro-nuke shift is BOTH policy and poll driven. Perhaps not in that order but both play their part.
A small section of environmental community has ALWAYS supported nuclear power as alternative to fossil fuels, and its numbers are growing.
Am guessing that the kind of enviro who is increasing attracted to nukes as a solution (at least partial and mid-term) to global warming is likely to be the kind of voter increasing attracted to Cameron for reasons that have little or nothing to do with the enviroment.
forgive me if Im wrong but aren’t Mr and Mrs Balls somehow connected to things nuclear?
100 Rod, it’s PfP not PtP, so that’s the customary £1 levy towards the PB.com party please.
100 & 65 & previous - Indeed, Labour is certainly down but hardly out of the running. IF nothing else, the mercurial nature of opinon shifting AND polling in both UK and US over past year is cautionary tale. PLUS the solid bloc of Labour seats north of the Wash that is exceeding difficult for the opposition parties to dent.
103. A nuclear family?
100 Although the third party is now a lot stronger, of course.
Rod - you’re assuming then that the Lib Dems’ current seat tally is likely to hold up at the next GE?
Aren’t there about 20 more seats in the HoC than when Kinnock secured 271 seats in 1992 and certainly since Wislon’s 287 in 1970?
93 Didcot is partly converted to gas. Still uses lots of coal though….
Actually, the heart of the UK nuclear industry probably lies within about thirty miles of Cameron’s constituency - if you include Atomic Weapons Establishment, Aldermaston; Burghfield nuclear weapons site (just south of Reading); and sub-atomic particle research at AEA Abingdon (Culham); and Harwell - the birthplace of the UK atomic industry.
Not to mention, of course, Greenham Common near Newbury - probably the site of a “broken arrow” nuclear weapons accident in February 1958:
A B-47 bomber experiencing engine trouble during takeoff jettisoned two full 1,700 gallon fuel tanks from an altitude of 8,000 feet, which missed a designated safe impact area and exploded 65 feet behind a parked B-47 loaded with nuclear weapons. The resulting fire burned for 16 hours and caused the high explosives package of at least one weapon to explode. The explosion released radioactive material, including powdered uranium and plutonium oxides, at least 10 to 20 grams of which were found off base. An adjacent hangar was also severely damaged, and other planes nearby had to be hosed down to prevent their ignition by the intense heat fueled by the jet propellant and magnesium in the B-47. The fire killed two people, injured eight others, and destroyed the bomber.
The Air Force has never officially admitted that nuclear weapons were involved in this accident. The US Air Force and Ministry of Defence agreed in 1956 to deny the existence of nuclear weapons in any accident involving U.S. nuclear weapons stationed in England. In 1985, the British government reported that the accident involved a parked B-47 that was struck by a taxiing B-47 on a training exercise, omitting any mention of the ensuing fire.
http://www.cdi.org/Issues/NukeAccidents/accidents.htm
Worrying about nukes is for big girls blouses….
re 105 but to deprive Lab of an overall majority the Tories only have to win two seats north of the Wash.
105. I currently live and work in North England.
THe bloc of support and hence seats is shifting away from Labour. This is supported by a recent guardian poll which showed a decisive shift to the tories and opinion from the people i rub shoulders with everyday at work. People are now saying it is time for change as the government has wasted loads of cash. People do not like high taxes on everything - full stop. They mention the cash thing most, then Northern Rock and other government problesms such as the 25 million names etc. Brown is also mentioned a lot and people have had enough.
I did not instigate these conversations and did not say whether i was Tory, Labour or that pointless party we do not mention with a child prodigy at the helm! When is Clegg’s 30th Birthday?
Of course the North is always going to be a stronger point for Labour in comparison to the south as Vis a Vis the south is for the tories.
The Tories are a lot better placed than your perception and comments indicate IMO.
105 Absolutely right! For the Tories to increase their seat tally from under 200 last time to over 300 in just one go would be an extraordinary achievement. No, a buy of labour seats is where I consider the value to be right now - I may have bought in 5 or 10 seats too high, but I doubt whether it’s any more than that.
re 107 PfP next time there will actually be 1 fewer seat than 1992 and 20 more than 1970.
99. Yes, I’m looking into this, but the danger is twofold.
i) the Welsh and Scottish polls may be unreliable, too small a sample size, different answers to different questions (Holyrood v Westminster?) to draw useful conclusions.
ii) there is no obvious single algorithm which allows freedom to input Scotland and Wales separately, and yet preserves the overall sense of the GB national polls. It would be very hit-and-miss, although it’s possible I suppose to come up with something. I’ll keep at it. The best I could come up with was previous actual swing patterns, which should have a roughly zero-sum impact on the overall vote shares, and apart from 1992 don’t have a huge impact on seats either.
There are so many adjustments that can be made for different factors that it’s no wonder the professionals like Curtice and Butler only try to identify them in retrospect - after the votes are counted….
105. I currently live and work in North England.
THe bloc of support and hence seats is shifting away from Labour.
Interesting Martin, judging by the historic regional polls, which have tended to show little or no shift to the Tories in the North of England generally, presumably you are sensing a fairly recent phenomenon. Without being too specific, which area(s) are you referring to?
On the subject of Nuclear Power the admirable Jeremy Clarkson has summed the arguments above in his column in the Sunday Times:
“Not only is the energy clean but there are other advantages too. The new power plants will be privately run, which means you can buy shares in them and you won’t lose a penny. Because when things are going well you’ll get a dividend, and when they’re not going well you won’t care because you’ll be covered in sulphurous sores and blood will be spurting from where your eyes used to be.”
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/comment/columnists/jeremy_clarkson/article3176456.ece
112 Thanks for that info Chris.
MICHIGAN RUMMY
When I was a child we used to play this game, which is similar to Gin Rummy except you put pennies into cups or something - the rules are hazy in my mind but the whole point was that it was a fun game if you were bored to tears on a rainy day.
Same goes for the Michigan Primary, Tuesday Jan 15.
REPUBLICANS
Recent polling has ROMNEY in 1st, McCAIN behind by approx the margin of error, HUCKABEE trailing in 3rd but still within striking distance.
Wolverine State has nation’s highest unemployment, never truly participated in the 1990s boom and certain has been major victim of W-economics.
Geographically the GOP vote is divided between:
–Detroit suburbs: mix of upscale country clubers and down scale religous/security conservatives; once heartland for Mitt’s dad, 3-term Gov. George Romney
–Western Mich: Grand Rapids and its region settled by conservative Dutch protestants, remains very conservative, both standpat AND evangelical; Huckabee should get significant traction here
–Rest of Southern Mich: small cities, towns and farms should provide votes for all GOPers but precise balance could prove highly significant.
–Upper Peninsula and northern Lower Pen: mostly a howling wilderness (had a buddy in US Air Force who was stationed in UP and got overseas pay!) not many votes, similar to northern New Hampshire & may also be McCain’s kind of turf.
Michigan may indeed be case of Do or Die for Romney. IF he wins may give him bit of a boost in SC. Ditto for McCain, while a 2nd place for Huckabee would achieve same thing, and likely doom whomever he drove into 3rd.
With respect to message to Michiganders in state where recession isn’t a prediction, but rather a long-standing reality, here is the message being pushed by each of the leading GOPers:
Romney = soothing syrup
McCain = straight talk
Huckabee = like the guy you work with, not the one who laided you off
106 The old ones are… well, the oldest!
70+% of French energy is nuclear, it’s very low carbon, we don’t have to get it from unstable regimes. What’s not to like?
Vociferous greenies apart, most people I know are in favour of nuclear without really having strong views. That would change if the lights were in danger of going out (or rather, when people realise that we ARE in danger of exactly that), and the support for nuclear will only become stronger. Wind and wave is little more than pie in the sky - where does the energy come from for the incredible number of miles of copper cables to connect up offshore windmills anyway?
107/111. Putney Pete.
I entirely agree. Lab @ 271 seats does look like value now. That’s a loss of ~85 seats. Pretty tall order for Cameron, though probably not far off where he will get. Having said that, even if that doesn’t pan-out the price will move at *some point* during the next 24 months. You could probably sell after Livingstone wins in May??
If I hadn’t been spooked by NH (and lost my cash) I might take up a spread bet buy at £10 a seat.
(btw, I’ve calmed down now - feel free to make jokes again
)
110 - IF you are correct and opposition is truly making inroads in North of England versus Labour, then that is indeed VERY bad news for Gordon Brown and the Labour Party.
PROVIDING that such shifts are
1. Actually reflected in general election voting; and
2. They are of sufficient degree to actually start effecting more than a handful of seats.
110: ‘or that pointless party we do not mention with a child prodigy at the helm!’
LOLOLOLOL
Good luck in North, Martin!
117. “REPUBLICANS
Recent polling has ROMNEY in 1st, McCAIN behind by approx the margin of error, HUCKABEE trailing in 3rd but still within striking distance.”
Link? Only poll I’ve seen has McCain ahead by 1% (27/26% I think..)
123 Best poll update is at realclearpolitics.com. You will find them all there.
53 The Chernobyl meltdown was caused by grossly negligent mismanagement. That reactor did not have the safety features that even contemporary reactors had in almost every other country which built them, let alone those which present designs have.
You mention Three Mile Island - IIRC there was not a single death in that accident.
Almost any technology can cause disasters if grossly mismanaged (including coal gas, oil, hydro-electricity and wind power - the oldest giant wind turbine in Cumbria literally fell over about a week or so ago). Many of the alternatives to nuclear power have caused far more deaths in industrial accidents per kilowatt hour even when not mismanaged than the nuclear industry would have caused even if you accepted the highest estimates of deaths put forward by the fiercest critics of the industry.
The area I live is now dominated by the nuclear industry but used to be a coal mining area. Last year I attended the 60th anniversary commemoration of a coal mining accident in my ward in which over a hundred men died. That was just one of the fourteen major disasters and many other individual tragedies during the history of that pit. The total number of men, women, boys and girls killed in that one pit while it was operational was about 300.
Unless you propose to go back to living in caves, the answer is not to ban anything which could possibly go wrong but to look at the actual safety standards which it is practical and realistic to expect - and, of course, to then do your very best to minimise the number of accidents caused by whichever solution you run with.
57 - Yes, the fact that the present nuclear power fleet generates 18% of our electricity and reduces our national carbon footprint by about 4%. So doubling our nuclear industry would mean reducing the carbon footprint by 8%. That is why nuclear power cannot be the whole answer. But it doesn’t mean that the environmental contribution which the nuclear industry makes by reducint our carbon footprint is trivial. It’s about equivalent to taking a third of the cars in the UK off the road.
If there were a form of power generation which was called something like “alternative energy” instead of having the talismanic label “nuclear,” and which could reduce carbon emissions by as much as taking a third of cars out of use, does anyone seriously imagine that Friends of the Earth and Greenpeace would not be falling over themselves to support it?
123 Casino: OOOOOH USA? I had forgotten about that. Much more interesting talking about UK GE 2010!
114 & 121. The areas the people come from are as defuse as Mansfield, Sheffield, Leeds, York, Hull, Manchester, Liverpool and Huddersfield. Obviously they are not a representative sample in themselves but watching peoples opinion change overtime is most interesting. The motivation for Old Labour voters in the North has evapourated (Even amoung early 20’s age group).
What does this mean? It means that certainly at the moment their are a lot of people who are motivated to critise the government. It also means that providing their is not some sort of event that changes the political landscape in favour of Labour the government is finished at the next GE. Why do i say this? When not just professionals who voted Labour in the last few GE’s who advised in the autumn that Brown should be given a chance when he called off election now vocally abuse the government - something has happened! I would add that people in Petrol stations, bars etc all say the same about the government: bad, incomptent, don’t trust them……………
What one has to remember is in 2005, Labour were given the default mandate as Tories were in 1992. It is quite easy to envisage a supercharged Tory gain of seats specifically with professional targeting employed.
109 “but to deprive Lab of an overall majority the Tories only have to win two seats north of the Wash. ”
How many do they have north of the Wash at the moment?
Surely you mean they have to GAIN two seats.
HAND OF MICH
Fun fact about Michigan - when asked for directions or where say a particular city is located, Michiganders like to raise on hand like an Indian saying “How!” in an old Lone Ranger episode.
BECAUSE with fingers closed but thumb out at normal angle and palm facing the view, the human hand resembles a map of the Lower Peninsula of Michigan. Indeed, the sub-peninsula that sticks into Lake Huron is called “The Thumb”.
123, 124 - Jan is correct (as so often) just have time for a quick visit to PB.com but Detroit Free Press just did a poll, plus theres another new one out there with similar findings.
117 - Detroit City Centre has to be one of the most god awful depressing places I’ve ever seen, this was ten years ago though, is it still like some sort of post nuclear dystopia?
109. Geography was never my strong point, but on UNS (Wells figures) I get
Chester
Aberconwy
Calder Valley
Colne Valley
They of course don’t “have” to win any of these, or any other seat in particular. That is the beauty of our electoral system. Each seat has a unit value, unlike the States in the EC.
104,111. Sorry PfP, that’s what I get for sitting too far away from the screen. Don’t forget though that the Tories start on about 214, due to the boundary changes… Still a huge ask. 86 seats. Only NuLab in 1997 exceeded it (handsomely, as it happened), but this just doesn’t feel like it did then.
Remember all that Major went through..
Small majority, Commons division crisis after crisis..
By-election disaster after disaster..
Rebels like Tony Marlow and Theresa wotsnername dissing the government at every turn…
Redwood.. leadership crises
Sex’n'Sleaze week in, week out..
No, it just doesn’t feel the same, somehow..
121 & 110 Comparing the ICM Poll for May 2005 (just before election) and last months on ICM’s three regions - North, Midlands, South - Labour had same support in North & South in Dec 2007 as May 2005 but was significantly down in”Midlands”. Conservatives same in North but significantly up in Midlands and South and Lib Dems same in North but down in Midlands and significantly down in South.
Sample size makes this a bit hit or miss but that’s a pattern that’s shown up for some time.
For the SNP followers I see that in Dec 2007 about a sixth of SNP support was from Midlands and South not Scotland (only 3 out of 19 SNP supporters sampled and perhaps they had comev to England to visit over Christmas)
131 - And not just the city center, great swaths of Motor City are an urban wasteland. Burbs are a socio-economic smorgasbord. BTW one of the best places to view downtown Detroit (certainly safest after dark) AND get Mich. Primary results straight from the cow so to speak would be from the roof of a Windsor, Ont casino!
But doubt most of you guys are much into one-armed bandits!
132. What about 1970? Wilson won Maj. of 96ish in 1966, only to be ousted by heath with Maj. of 30ish. Admitedly the pointless party did not have as many seats but if the tories pass 40 in a GE. LD seats are going to tumble by the shedload, despite the hubris of the LD have local factors. A 7% uplift in the tory vote nationally and on present form upto a 7 point collapse in LD vote heralds a collapse in LD seats!
113. Fully agree with your caution and would add
i) Whilst there are the caveats you’ve identified in using actual polls from Wales and Scotland for the reasons you say, it could still be used to develop useful ‘what if’ scenario models.
ii) Not having the in depth knowledge of this aspect of the simulator or its underlying theory I cannot perceive what difficulties there are. Are there factors that would be put out of kilter by running separate poll figures for the three home nations through a single algorithm (are there regional factors built into the algorithm?) Regarding the swing patterns surely it is the case that instead of applying them to the single national figure you would be applying them to the slightly more accurate relative regional figures? In such a case why would this distort the outcome?
On your final point I assume one of the most significant factors would be a noticeable change in turnout (say from 60%-70%) where significantly more popular parties could potentially be proportionally better supported in increased turnout and propotionally less impacted where there is a significant turnout reduction?
135 a 7% swing from LD to Con is indeed possible and we can expect LD to be wrapped up apart from Celtic areas, SW England and one or two others like Simon Hughes who always win!
LD MPs in SW London - cheerio cheerio cheerio
124. Hmmm… 3 polls with McCain ahead, 3 polls with Romney ahead.
Must say, Romney still looking like better value on Betfair than either Giuliani OR Huckabee.
Mitt Romney is already ahead in delegates (30 to McCains 24) has won one state already (Wyoming) has come 2nd in two others and, now, is looking good to win a second state.
Given that there is a strong chance this nomination will go to convention, Romney could still come through the middle to win it. There is an article somewhere which demonstrates this, but I can’t remember where I found it.
Betfair odds still are 8/1 - it’s a good buy.
127 Thanks for that Martin. Of course a great many of these seats, especially in Lancashire and Merseyside have majorities of 10k or more - I had always assumed that for the Tories to form a government, their most feertile territory would have to be the Midlands, where Labour’s majorities are typically lower.
135. Heath made 77 net gains on a swing of 4.8%…
Cameron would make roughly the same, depending on the LD performance…
O/T HatTip Iain Dale
Nick Clegg “In seeking to make Britain fairer, we need to stop just asking “how much”, and to start thinking hard about “how”.”
In 2001, Ed Vaizey edited a book called A Blue Tomorrow, and commissioned an article from Kit Malthouse on tax in which he wrote: “The question for the Conservative Party shouldn’t have been merely ‘How Much?’ but more fundamentally ‘How?’”
Ed Vaizey comments: “Ah, Cleggmeister, you can wear as many red ties as you like, but fundamentally you think like a Tory.”
Watching Cameron on Marr I was very struck by just how rodent like, and unlikeable Cameron is becoming by the day. Aging, balding, fattening, wrinkling, frowning, whining, calculating, scheming.
Politics really is a gruesome business. It completely degrades human beings.
From my POV, the odd thing about 1970 is not that Wilson lost; it’s that Labour managed to avoid getting massacred, looking at the disasters which it Wilson and the incredible anti-Labour reaction in local elections.
135, 140 - Exactly. Those LD seats make all the difference, even if you assume zero incumbency effect.
133. Ted - Over Xmas I combined the regional figures from the latest poll from the five main pollsters as best as is possible to get some sort of inkling of the current regional situation in comparison to 2005. By doing so many of the regional ‘weighted’ samples were in excess of 600 (i.e. greater than a normal national ICM poll weighted sample). Of course there are all sorts of caveats that could be applied.
It provides only a rough suggestion of what might be going on. However, the results were interesting. Firstly there was a suggestion that the smallest swing to the Conservatives in England was in the South East and London (at the cost of the Libdems and others). The Labour vote was low but relatively steady.
In the South West the Conservatives and possibly Labour were taking net votes from the Libdems & Others.
I agree with you that Labour (and to a certain extent the Libdems from a low base) were being severely squeezed in the Midlands with the Conservatives making significant gains.
As a result its possible that the Conservatives are leading significantly throughout the Midlands and South outside London and in London they are neck and neck with Labour.
The biggest swings seemed to be in the North where the Labour and Libdem votes seem to have dropped significantly with a small increase in the Conservative vote. Labour still lead but instead of by nearly 20 points it is now well down into single figures.Whats happened to the rest - who knows? This probably won’t gather the Conservatives a lot of seats in the north but it would ensure they build on their current base.
Given the situation then I suspect the Conservatives might have scraped an overall majority and on a good day a solid majority. That said it could all be different by April…..
142. Friend of mine said that no matter what the polls predicted Cameron would not win, simply because people would baulk at the prospect of actually voting for him.
Non-anecdotal: I’d expect to see a squeeze before a general election as Cameron becomes more than just “not Brown”
142 Oh Dear, sounds like he needs a good holiday - but doubtless the Beeb’s make-up department used all their skills to make him look as dreadful as possible!
125 Chris W
Having read your posts today, and some stuff from your blog, I have no doubt you are highly intelligent, ambitious, and trying to give your potential constituents what they and you believe they want. Personally, I find it pretty scary. You are clearly aware of the limits of the use and abuse of statistics, but some of the pro-nuclear stuff you come out with ignores the lessons you have learned elsewhere. The nuclear industry is involved with a longevity of risk (that’s probably not the right phrase) in a totally different order from other industries, which you I am sure rightly say, have actually to this moment directly killed more people. Another point, as we know, is that in some cases the product of fission can be used for weapons grade material, and can therefore in the wrong hands lead to unnecessary proliferation, more deaths, and great insecurity. Anyone with any commonsense knows that Murphy’s Law applies - if something can happen, it will. And if the consequences of that something are disastrous as in the case of Chernobyl, then surely it is better we don’t do it.
Then, of course, there are the invented economics of nuclear energy, which supporters and apologists (of whom you are one, IMO) quote over and over again. Others here have gone into that in more detail than I know. Now I know what I have to say will not alter your views, or your expression of them because of your position, but I hope others here will beware of anyone bearing (apparent) nuclear gifts, however much you want the lights to stay on. Chris, we do not want to return to caves, but I contend there is somewhat more likelihood of that with nuclear than without.
146- there was a brief moment when Cameron had charisma, now he looks like he is burrowing in that hovel of unlikeability where politicians appear to live.
It will happen to Clegg soon enough. Brown, well nuff said.
141. Ted. I agree with Ed Vaizey. It’s just so cheap when a politician plagiarizes……
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D8gLYZV6Z4g
For your delectation. Complete list of Tory gains, 1970… the largest single number in the North!
Bebington
Bolton E
Bolton W
Bradford W
Bury & Radcliffe
Keighley
Middlesbrough W
Nelson & Colne
Preston N
Preston S
Rossendale
Sheffield Heeley
Stockpot N
Stretford
Cheadle
Chorley
Lancaster
Middleton & Prestwich
Yardley
Coventry S
Oldbury & Halesowen
The Wrekin
Cannock
Leek
Lichfield & Tamworth
Meriden
Leicester SW
Nottingham S
Belper
High Peak
Derbyshire SE
Bosworth
Wellingborough
Rushcliffe
Cambridge
Ipswich
Luton
Norwich S
Oxford
Reading
Bedford
Bedforshire S
Buckingham
Billericay
Kings Lynn
Norfolk N
Yarmouth
Rochester & Chatham
Southampton Test
Dartford
Dover
Faversham
Gravesend
Hampstead
Lewisham West
Clapham
Harrow E
Hornchurch
Ilford S
Walthamstow E
Epping
Chislehurst
Orpington
Uxbridge
Bristol NE
Bristol NW
Exeter
Gloucester
Bodmin
Falmouth & Camborne
Cardiff N
Conway
Monmouth
Pembroke
Aberdeen South
Abedeenshire W
Ross & Cromarty
147- even poor Peter Hain has lost his tan. What is the world coming to?
142. That’s more like it Tyson! You’ll soon be back to your old self!
re 120 it amazes me the people on here who still use the real 2005 result rather than the notional one. If you’re betting on exchanges where every seat counts it’s going to prove very expensive. Just to reiterate 271 seats is NOT a loss of 85 seats but a loss of only 73.
Re 138 “Romney could still come through the middle to win it. There is an article somewhere which demonstrates this, but I can’t remember where I found it.”
“Can Romney take 2nd place all the way to the nomination?”
http://tinyurl.com/3canro
re 128. Ta. I did of course mean gain.
151. I think roughly 30 of these are no-hopers now for the Tories. What do others think?
A fun first week political betting… I’m mainly betting on the GOP primary nomination, with the biggest sums laying Guiliani @ 3.7 and 3.75. I just can’t see someone who supports abortion and gun control, who is on his third wife and who appears in a dress in some photo as appealing to the republican base. Plus the fact he must remind all americans of why they hate New Yorkers. I’m trying to decide now whether to take the profits or stick with the hunch and go for broke. I’ve also laid McCain - he may deserve to be favorite, but odds of effectively 4/3 seem incredibly short on a front runner in a race with four credible candidates. Something’s bound to go wrong somewhere and enable me to close up the position at a profit. Otherwise a small amount on Huckabee and slightly more on Romney. I can’t make head or tail of the democrat race, so steered well clear last week, thank goodness!
re 132 oops I’d forgotten Aberconwy (disgraceful considering I was brought up there). I was counting Chester as level with the Wash which is a vague geographical area. I’m sure the burghers of Chester would take offence at being considered “oop north”
157. On the other hand they already hold about 14 of them…
153 - But critically no mention of Eton or the Bullingon. We’ll have Tyson turning blue yet, mark my words.
news on ITV about George Osborne failing to declare half a million in donations.
Just to change the subject, my Euro calculator suggests that if the BNP double their vote to 9.8% next time (at the expense of UKIP) that they’ll win 8 seats (NW, Y&H, EM, 2xWM, E, Lond, SE). Is such a gain credible? After all they will play on the fact that it is membership of the EU which allows the country to be filled with Polish, Lithuanians, Romanians etc., but will running a national campaign see them rumbled?
150 Roger - I’d forgotten Cameron saying it was about “taking the tough, long term decisions” (Blair only took tough ones) - did wonder where Brown had got that one from (it doesn’t appear in Bob Schrum’s speechbook)
161. Here’s the story, sorry if someone has already posted it.
http://ukpress.google.com/article/ALeqM5h3mkU4WbnZ9HFGBRX1TRuOF5LD6Q
161 Labour has had lots of people out today pushing that so no surprise. Doesn’t help them though nor is it likely to harm Osborne as he seems to have covered bases.
132- No it doesnt feel the same but it never does in Hindsight.
Its the economy that matters and when our great former chancellor starts to have to make excuses then he is in trouble.
They started last week i think.
Is McCain under threat in MI?
I’m beginning to think Romney may be on to something be it Democrat inclineds voting for him or just the plain home boy vote and it isnt over yet. Still two days to go.
Still no one wants to price up the GOP SC contest. Pity, its an interesting race.
146 I was having a discussion with a few friends today. On the whole they were Labour voters and the comment that struck me (when we were talking about the opinion polls) was that if asked by a pollster, they would say Conservative or Lib Dem just to give a labour a good kicking in the chance that the party would get its act together before an election.
(Pretty much what I did at the last election in my tight Lab/Lib Dem marginal)
Maybe saying you’re going to vote Labour has become the new “I’m voting for Obama” then secretly choosing Clinton instead?
The polls on Brown as a bear and Cameron as a snake were interesting - if the public still see Dave this way then I’m pretty damn sure those opinion polls will narrow quite significantly come election time.
On another note, Hain just quietly step aside - As for Osbourne, in all probability an oversight but it didn’t look good in simple headline format scrolling along the bottom of the rolling news. Good media management that he didn’t appear in a news studio - he does tend to look a little smug.
157 Exactly, that’s why it just seems so difficult to believe they can get anyway near an overall majority, although just by looking at Baxter one can see how the seats just cascade into their lap once they poll 40% or above. Below 37% and we retain a Labour Government.
168. “I was having a discussion with a few friends today. On the whole they were Labour voters and the comment that struck me (when we were talking about the opinion polls) was that if asked by a pollster, they would say Conservative or Lib Dem just to give a labour a good kicking in the chance that the party would get its act together before an election…”
My theory too… I mean, come on, does anyone really want Cameron as PM?
158. I can reach Chester in half an hour on a good day, and I’m NORTH of Liverpool…
162. Whether its credible or not I don’t know but it will certainly put the cat among the pigeons regarding the state funding proposals in the Hayden Phillips report if it happens. State funding for the BNP. Now that will cause a stir in the major parties!
Interesting that Cameron didn’t mention state funding this morning when Andrew Marr questioned him on party funding reform.
170 I mean, come on, does anyone really want Cameron as PM?
Well yes actually, many, many more than want either Brown or Clegg unless you consider the polls to be complete rubbish.
169 If you had looked at the Conservative seats in early 1997, there were a huge number one could never see going Labour - partly why many Conservatives didn’t think it was going to be so bad (a bit of opposition to regroup etc) and why the massive losses were such a shock. We were left with a rump of MPs, who survived because they were in atypically safe seats, and were unready to risk change for far too long.
While I’m still more in the hung parliament camp I do wonder if that’s because on a seat by seat basis the mountain looks too difficult (Lib Dems would never lose that one, 6,000 majority there makes that one impossible etc.). If the polls are right and especially if the South East, South West and Midlands have changed that much maybe the impossible isn’t.
153- thanks Roger,
160- John O- my wife always tells me I will end up a Tory. I must add she tells me that after all other insults bounce off mind; you are a useless husband, oh well could be worse; a pathetic lover, hmmm; an odious, lecherous oaf, well you cannot have it all dear; but the one that hits the target- well aimed, targeted full force at the midriff- you will end up a Tory darling. She just knows how to hurt.
165. In the interests of parity then i will also post this, notable for Vince Cable’s use of the word bullshit.
http://observer.guardian.co.uk/politics/story/0,,2239947,00.html?gusrc=rss&feed=11
I doubt it’ll be a major story, a bit too complicated in terms of finance and law.
re 170. Rod - sometimes I think your hatred of the Tories gets in the way of your otherwise excellent analysis. You ask - I mean, come on, does anyone really want Cameron as PM?
Well YouGov and ComRes have been finding that more voters want Cameron rather than Brown when the forced choice question is put. Even in today’s YouGov poll 5% more people said they trusted Cameron-Osborne to raise their standard of living than Brown-Darling. You’ve just got to look at the numbers.
172- pfp- I think the choice between Cameron, Clegg, or Brown is a bit like a horrible tease my sister used to inflict on me as a child- which would you prefer to drink, a pint of snot, vomit, or diarohea.
I think people making a positive choice for either is stretching the boat out somewhat.
176- Mike- see post 177
& to 176. ComRes in December had 48% saying they wanted a change of government to a Tory one compared with 36% wanting to stick with Labour.
Last month YouGov found a split of 45%-35% in favour of Cameron’s Tories when the alternative of Brown’s Labour was put - the highest margin ever.
re 178. That maybe the case but one party will emerge and the mood for change looks quite strong.
I don’t think there’s much enthusiasm for Cameron’s Tories but the evidence seems to be that they are more popular than Brown’s Labour.
If someone like John Denham had become Labour leader then the world would look totally different. Unfortunately the PLP is made up of supine fools and many of them will lose their jobs as a result.
They cannot say they were not warned - the polls had been showing this for eighteen months before they chose to give Gord his coronation.
172. I have never met ONE. Seriously. I frequent a few taverns, and I recall the word “Blair” was on many, many people’s lips in casual conversation during 1994-7, as well as a tangible hatred of the Tories, and our incumbent Tory MP. It really doesn’t feel that way, now. People are just turned-off politics completely, which I guess will help Labour somewhat.
173. True, but…. the Labour vote is structured very differently from the Tories. Very fortuitously from a FPTP perspective. It saved them in 1983 and could well save them again in the current circumstances. Very many more safe seats (and compensating electoral deserts) have Labour well-placed under FPTP every time, barring a tsunami.
re 181 which is why the Tories will, sooner or later, turn to STV.
Just happened to catch the 60second bulletin on BBC3 - “Cameron forced to defend his Shadow Chancellor over 1/2million in donations”.
Clearly a very over simplified headline and in all honesty, unfair - but not a good headline for the Tories, especially considering the 18-34 target audience the channel is aimed at.
The Labour media operation seems to be cranking back up into gear.
Yokel (way back there)- you are a sensitive soul.It is a ludicrous challenge to set to ask someone to check every post. Silly really.
I am certain that you have been painting a bleak picture for a number of months - that 2008 /09 was going to be very hard.
The thing is you are right. I agree with you …..but they remain doom laden.You have assumed that “doom laden” was a criticism.Steady the buffs there
Similarly to be likened to such a sage as the undertaker in Dad’s Army is a high compliment - “We are all doomed!”
PS - Had to have dinner, watch Schindler’s List on DVD and Sense & Sensibility and MotD on TV, hence the delay in replying.
179. I wonder how Labour would fare under another figure. has there been any polling of that ilk done lately?
Tyson is basically correct the forced choice thing is maybe a bit poor, certainly as a thing to pin a bet on.
Someone the other day suggested that Labour’s vote seems to be bouncing a round its core of 30-33%. I would guess that its core is at the lower end of that range but if that range is fairly accurate would a new head of party really change that? Or is it a case that too many people are just a bit tired of Labour for a new leader to actually make enough of an impact?
I am of the view that come polling day that time for a change idea will make a Labour victory extremely difficult to achieve.
This assumes the Tories don’t make a first rate balls up somewhere.
176. Mike, I don’t hate Tories. Proof: I voted for them in 1997, the hour of their greatest need. I hate PHONEYS of any party. I could never vote for Blair, nor for his understudy Cameron..
You really seem fixated on polls, when their history should scream caution. Polls are only one part of the jigsaw. We must use ALL available pieces of information; real votes, measurement of the electoral mountain, local factors, incumbency, and anecdotal evidence on the ground. And a few others I’ve forgotten.
I think sometimes you conflate short-term “playing the spreads” with a sober assessment of the actual result in 2010. As far as I can see they are very different things..
Well… not a good day for the Tories as regards headlines. The funding method for Ozzy’s office may be within the law, just like the layering done by Midlands Industrial Thingy - and Ashcroft - but the public may find it distasteful.
With every funding story the media may say: It may be legal - but is it right?
State funding may have advanced a bit closer today. I don’t care if the BNP get funding from it. You can’t exclude them.
173 I remember looking at one of those politically coloured constituency map after the 1983 election. Drawing a line from the Wash to the Bristol Channel,
173 I always remember looking at one of those politically-coloured constituency maps of England after the 1983 General Election. If one drew a line from the Wash to the Bristol Channel, then
to the south of such a line, there were just three, yes three, constituencies coloured red in the whole of Southern England, outside Greater London. You’d get very long odds indeed on that ever happening again - are you listening Paddy Power?
132Rod Teresa Gorman?
In the 92 to 97 periiod it was common to hear people say that the Labour poll leads were because people wanted to warn the Tory government, but they would be back in the fold for an election. Lots of Tory ex-MPs believed that.
It is worth remembering that God made man in his own image and statisticians make their mathematical models in the same way.
188 - what were they? Ipswich? Norwich something?
187 - Tell me if this is madness, but I have a modest proposal.
I don’t like the idea of State funding, but for a fraction of the cost, the State could play a role.
Instead of donations being sent to the candidates/party, have all donations sent to the Electoral Commission directly, with an indication of to whom the money should go. If satisfied it meets with approval, it would be sent by wire to the candidate/party. A candidate would be barred from receiving political funds into their personal accounts - only their Parliamentary paycheck and dividends from shares etc. Any fundraising would have to be done using a separate ‘registered’ bank account that could only receive money from the candidate’s personal account and the Electoral Commission (ie by banker’s draft). Any breach, mandatory 18 months, minimum security, and all donations donated to the EC (to cover its operational costs.
There is no reason why a hold-up should be problematic - all parties and candidates borrow on their healthy credit ratings anyway - Hain is still paying off debt now, according to Guido. Pre-approval of all donations by the Electoral Commission would ensure no ‘accidents’ could happen. It would save so many problems, and the cost to the State would be a fraction of State funding. Donations in kind would have to seek prior permission.
Have I missed something?
184. Fair enough.
I wouldnt stick down the challenge if I didnt know my ground and I can pretty much guarantee I didnt predict a recession because evry time I’ve posted on economics I;ve been very careful in my use of langauge.
I predicted a ‘downturn’ or ‘more difficult times’ or a ’slowdown’ because there wasnt then and still isnt now any a guarantee that the economy will go into an actual reverse over a sustained period such as over a year.
The one thing i did describe as most definitely possible over a short period was something that someone kindly explained to me was called stagflation.
The other reason why I was careful in my language was because I also wanted to avoid the bollocks that recession is Brown’s fault. It isn’t because it can’t be in a global trading situation, just as the period of economic growth wasnt anything near all his acheivement either.
The government’s ability to respond to more difficult times(the levers that I knock on about), however, is their own issue and if they don’t or can’t handle it as well as could be done becaude they didnt prepare during the good times (and there is evidence that they havent) then they are getting the rap.
The net result is not the country will be in a perpetual mess but that the more difficult times will be more probmematic than they could have been and that coming out may take longer than it should.
My only other major issue with Labour on the economy and business is that they seem to be infatuated by big business in the city, rightly (at least up until now though that may change) allowing them to get on and trade while weltering smaller businesses with a disproprotionate regulatory burden.
188.
Thurrock
Ipswich
Bristol S
Somewhat ironically, they went on to lose the first two in 1987, and almost lost the latter too….
re 187. Yes the history of the polling should scream caution. You are absolutely right - but only when it comes to the Labour shares. Polling overstatements all work one way.
Maybe next tine will be different but the record suggests otherwise.
re 191 Ipswich was definitely one, as was Thurrock, can’t remember where the third was
195 Wow, that’s quite a reference resource you have there!
There were 4 notional Labour gains in 1983. What were they?
Btw, it just goes to show that caution should be used with the notionals…
198. Believe it or not, PfP, it’s mostly in my head. Photographic memory, I think the shrink called it….
200 - I suspect even the shrink would have problems in analysing why the only occasion you voted Conservative was in 1997.
Guido seems to be suggesting that Hain while a minister and in the cabinet has been promoting commercial products in return for funding.
If so the Hain saga gets worse. Ministers for sale? Even Blair would not try that on.
http://www.order-order.com/2008/01/every-little-endorsement-helps-another.html
Tim at 148
We are not living in the sort of world in which you can eliminate risk. Certainly not from power generation.
I do not for an instant want to suggest that there are no risks from nuclear power nor to suggest that everything has always been handled perfectly in the past. But that is true of every other industry.
Britain has been dealing with nuclear waste and with nuclear decommissioning for half a century. When you look at the accident rates associated with decommissioning and long-term storage of nuclear waste over that time, and compare it with the death rates in other industries, your suggestion that nuclear power is uniquely dangerous in the long term is questionable.
There is a saying that “a little knowledge it a dangerous thing.” Because is is widely known that some forms of nuclear waste are highly dangerous if not handled properly, and others remain radioactive for many thousands of years, many people jump to the false conclusion that there are wastes to which both apply, which is not true.
In fact the degree of danger from particular waste products is inversely proportional to the half life of the radioactive element. There are certain types of nuclear waste which require very high levels of security and protection indeed, but the radioactive elements of these most dangerous wastes have very short half-lives. They do not last in significant quantities for long periods, certainly not for thousands of years. The substances which do remain active for millenia do so precisely because the rate at which radioactive decay takes place is so low that the amount of radiation produced is minimal.
Please do not think this means I am trivialising the risks and difficulties involved. Any country which has nuclear facilities has a duty to take the security and public health aspects of nuclear waste very seriously indeed. What I am saying is that provided those risks are taken seriously and addressed, they are manageable, and the evidence does not bear out the view that the human cost of civil nuclear power will be higher than the equivalent costs and risks posed by alternative forms of power generation.
You describe me as an supporter or apologist for the nuclear industry. If by that you mean someone who argues that nuclear power should form part of Britain’s energy policy, then yes, and I’m proud of it. But that does not mean I have any direct connection with BNG or any other part of the industry: I do not work in or for the nuclear industry. And I supported nuclear power for many years before I first became PPC for Copeland, moved to the area, or was elected to Copeland Council.
202. Thats tricky, surely politicians get seen with all kinds of commecial interests like this as standard?
The public basically thinks all politicians are the same, except for the ones they know personally: Tories here are deluding themselves if they think a distinction will be made between “I relied on X to declare my donations” and “I relied on Y to say if I should declare my donations”. But if it’s any consolation I don’t think many will care about either.
Morus: yes, I’ve heard that idea discussed and it’s not a bad one.
173,182. One might also point out that the electoral system significantly helped Labour in Feb’74, 1992 and 2005. For instance, no other party could have achieved a majority on such a low share in 2005..
201. Because Labour deserved to win, but not by the margin the system delivered, which I foresaw and believed would be bad for our democracy. I also distrusted Blair and nuLab.
I usually tend to vote in a way most likely to produce the closest result. I’d highly recommend it!
Yokel But the link is not normally so directly self serving as this. Politicians are expected to support UK products when overseas, for example.
70./163. I was a bit surprised to discover that a net swing of only 1% from UKIP to BNP (ceteris paribus) would result in the BNP winning 2 seats.
98. !!! How/why on earth did she come to be asking him that question at all?!? What was the context?
The next time a Labour politician says that there is no longer any trust in politics and politicians and the political process, and tell us that the public say ‘a curse on all your houses’ because all politicians are the same, well then just look at what they have been doing today.
They are trying to spin the Osborne donations story as equivalent to the Hain prestidigitation. And why? Simply to get themselves out of a mess. So another temporary expedient for a short term objective creating long term damage to the whole political process.
Yet they know that there is no comparison and that Hain really cannot hold on for long. His dealings are far too murky for that.
Will there be a reshuffle this week to weed him out? Brown can’t weed out Harman of course, but Hain is another matter. And Wendy Alexander would surely be another domino to fall if Hain goes even if he is shuffled out.
Watt has already been weeded - will he be the fall guy for the police investigation.
A treat for TB fans who can follow French - Blair wowing the UMP conference:
http://www.dailymotion.com/cluster/politics/video/x41hj0_tony-blair-a-lump_politics
Readers should note that Chris Whiteside (203, and previous) is an interested party in a marginal seat greatly interested in the nuclear industry.
Thanks Nick. Still a class act.
212. Care to substantiate that accusation?
Both Clinton and McCain 15 points ahead in national polls for CBS/NY Times. There’s value in McCain at the current prices for President if he can only get it in to his party member’s skulls that only he can win it for them.
214 - He’s already said that he’s standing for the tories in Copeland. I don’t think he’s been trying to keep it secret.
210: The BBC have shown themselves in their full nakedness today, they have ran the story on every bulletin i have seen, across their entire network.
It is one thing for the Mail on Sunday to suggest things arent quite right, wink wink, nudge nudge, it is another thing entirely for the BBC, who in full receipt of the facts, know that Osbourne has done nothing wrong, in law, in morality, he hasnt skated on thin ice, he hasnt danced a thin line, yet they run the story as an equivalence to the Hain story.
At one time the BBC took its news running order straight from Alistair Campbell, I wonder who they are taking from now?
Poll: Obama, McCain Extend Leads In SC
http://www.raleigh2.com/default.asp?sourceid=&smenu=1&twindow=Default&mad=No&sdetail=366&wpage=1&skeyword=&sidate=&ccat=&ccatm=&restate=&restatus=&reoption=&retype=&repmin=&repmax=&rebed=&rebath=&subname=&pform=&sc=2502&hn=raleigh2&he=.com