How are “others” likely to split as the race gets tighter?
December 7th, 2009
YouGov for Channel 4 June 2009
Can Labour really expect to benefit most?
The above is from the massive 32,268 sample YouGov poll taken just before the Euro Election last June and is just about the best resource we’ve got on the attitudes and backgrounds of those who, in that election at least, supported the “others” - the BNP, UKIP or the Greens.
For given the continued very high shares that are being recorded for this segment this survey might provide pointers as to what might happen as the race gets tighter.
A problem with standard sized surveys of 1,000 - 2,000 is that the numbers opting for these three parties are so small that it’s hard to draw many conclusions.
This is, of course, the response to YouGov’s standard forced choice question which has been asked in precisely the same way for several years. It might be a bit old but there’s nothing else available to put into context a report in the Times this morning which notes:-
“..Labour’s election planners believe an 8-point gap between the current party of Government and the Tories can be closed. They say that a third of Lib Dem voters have suggested that they might vote Labour, which would equate to 5 percentage points. Meanwhile, they believe that the numbers currently saying they support “others” in polls — greens, BNP and UKIP — may go back to Labour, closing the gap by a further 3 percentage points…”
I’ve found it quite hard to work out what it can be based on. Certainly there must be a reasonable expectation that Labour will do best from Green voters but big blocks of UKIP and BNP backers would appear to be much more likely to go to the Tories who look set to be the biggest gainers as “others” get smaller. Indeed it’s been the recent rise of this segment, rather than Labour advances, that’s been behind the Tory fall-off in support.
And I’m far from convinced about the “one in three Lib Dems” assertion. The current evidence is that they are more evenly split and there’s little to suggest that a move on that scale of the report might happen.
There’s little doubt that the 13% - 18% aggregate share for others currently being reported will get smaller as we get nearer the day but the Times report suggests a level of wishful thinking.
Mike Smithson
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nunero uno ?
oops numero
They will split against Labour.
That is why the tactical unwind will be so important and is why I am still more inclined to believe there will be a big Tory majority rather than a hung parliament when the polls suggest a slim Tory majority.
I’d agree with your analysis re wishful thinking Mike. We don’t know what Labour’s own internal polling is showing but I doubt it can be that much away from the polls we’ve seen elsewhere. Having said that, evidence from the amount of MSM attention the Mori poll got and the hung parliament narrative means that the media themselves want more of a horse race. This may help the others focus on a definative outcome. Guess we’ll all see soon enough.
3. The reason I think there will be a hung parliament is more to do with (dare I say it) a swing back rather than support returning from small parties. As for the potential actions of Liberal Democrat-inclined voters, we also have to account for the possibility of Labour voters shoring up the Liberal Democrats where the Tories are the main challenger. They’ll arguably have an even greater incentive to do than in the previous three elections.
re 5. I agree with that James. Lib Dem incumbents are going to be much harder to shift than the polls might suggest as a result of increased Labour tactical voting.
But I can see a fair bit of UKIP support going to the Tories in the marginals. As I noted yesterday the share for “others” in the recent YouGov marginals poll was significantly smaller than current national surveys.
FWIW my thoughts:
1. Small parties will get a higher share of the overall vote this time than ever before – but still a lot less than we see in the polls now. So the question of where they are likely to revert to is important. My guess is that about 8% of the overall vote is going to revert to the main parties.
2. The ‘Labour Out’ theme is not yet in full swing. Nor is the ‘Gordon Epiphany’. So I see Tory upside in the polls between now and the start of the GE campaign (which will itself further damage Labour as Sauron will be on telly a lot).
3. The overall turnout will be a lot higher than any recent GE. Polls are delightfully interesting to us politics junkies – but absolute vote numbers should be too. I believe the theory of ‘Tory voter strike’ and expect notable improvement in Tory votes on the day not from switchers but from previous abstainers voting again. (This is what I see as the biggest risk to the pollsters ability to get the result right and I’m not entirely sure how their different methodologies address it now).
4. The PBR and financial news will be utterly grim for Labour over the holidays and start their new year in a terrible position. We’re broke and they can’t hide it. Spending must be slashed and voters will blame Gordon for it (rightly so).
5. I agree that LDs are going to be hard to beat in some seats but the LD overall MP count will not move much either way.
6. Most people switched on enough to get into tactical voting will be doing so to hurt Labour (not all but most).
7. UKIP will get quire a lot of votes in rock solid Tory seats and where those of the right feel safe to ‘protest’ – but in marginals most of the anti-EU vote will still go to the Tories.
So…my overall view is that Robert Smithson has it directionally correct and the Tory majority will be quite a bit higher than current polls and seat models suggest (apart from VIPA of course).
I concur that the Lib Dems will be harder to shift but that won’t stop a Tory majority.
Apart from the charming typo ‘nunero uno’, everything so far is spot on. I wish I could do highlights.
If the polls suggest a Labour Overall, it won’t happen.
If the polls suggest Labour Most Seats, they almost certainly won’t get them.
If the polls say Tory Most Seats, the Tories will have an Overall Majority.
If the polls say Tory Majority, hold on to your hats.We could be heading for a landslide.
Here are a couple of strange findings I offer for your consideration. Do bear in mind that to a certain extent I am getting caught in my own feedback but I wouldn’t be mentioning this if I thought it was spurious.
1. The Lib Dem Seat market has a ‘peculiar’ feature.Some might say it was a ‘normal’ feature. All the money (except mine) has been for the groupings 40-69, and the two Outliers 70+ and 39- have been totally shunned even at far better than trade prices. They will Back the narrow Bands 40-44 and 65-69 at less than fair value but will they touch the extremes ? Will they ‘eckaslike !
2.The Conservative Seat market is equally bizarre. Here I have admittedly given it a nudge but almost 60% of the total money traded has been for 400+ Seats.
Don’t you think that is remarkable ?
The December Guardian/ICM poll found “53% would be angry or disappointed at news of a Labour win”
http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2009/nov/16/cameron-closing-deal-icm-poll
Surely, if over 50% of the population want Labour to lose the next election, they will. Whoever can beat the Labour candidate, becomes the voters choice.
Are Labour election planners really assuming they can persuade 1/3 of LibDems to vote for them? What’s the word for that? Chutzpah? Brave? Optimistic? Batshit raving off their rockers insane? (OK that’s more than one word). What Labour are doing here is identifying the narrowest poll gap seen recently, identifying a hypothetical means to close the gap and then saying that is what they intend to do. What a crock.
Maybe Dave can get 1/3 of the LD vote too. Maybe he can win in Peckham. Maybe the moon is made of cheese.
I think either of the main parties assuming they will eat significantly into the current poll share of the LDs is going to lead to disappointment. But….given our electoral system and the levels we see in current poll shares that does not mean they won’t take some seats from the LDs – just maybe not as many as they would hope for.
(Out of interest Robert what does VIPA say about the LD likely performance / seat count?)
I agree it’s straw-clutching. And the 8-point gap the article mentions is a fairly - ahem - optimistic way of interpreting the current polling.
Assuming the Others shrink as the election approaches, Labour will be doing well if they get a 50/50 split. (Non-voters / low-certainty voters are another story, though.)
Where I would disagree a bit with the consensus here is that everyone seems to be very certain that the Others vote will shrink as the election approaches. I’m not so sure; We can expect a very dirty campaign with a lot of mud-slinging, which might hold up the “Plague On Both Your Houses” vote.
What it does reveal is that Labour still see themselves as a big beast and the LibDems as small fry to be chewed up. A disaster GE might change that. We’ve had one or two polls with the LDs nudging at taking over from Labour in second place. Imagine the crisis of confidence in the Labour party if the LDs did indeed push them out to third place, even for just one poll let alone the actual GE.
The GE result is going to kick off absolute mayhem within Labour. It will be fun to watch.
I suspect that where the others go to depends on a large extent on where they came from. I think it is unlikely for instance that someone who was voting Labour and is now saying Green is if they switch again going to say Conservative. They may return to Labour or switch again to the Lib Dems. I suspect ultimately it may come down to why they are saying a non-mainstream party. If it is frustration with their own then they may well just return from whence they came, if it is a vote against the duopoly then could well benefit the Lib Dems. If it is an anti-government thing then it will benefit whomsoever is best placed to be the recepticle of anti-Labour votes.
Here’s just a thought.It might be silly.
Could it be that the BNP in particular and the Greens to a lesser extent will pull in first-time voters ?
On the other hand, those who say they are going UKIP could be serial voters who never miss a chance to vote ?
O/T, one phone call to a golf buddy of mine in deepest surrey and it was confirmed who tigger had played with when in the yoo kay.
absolutely no chance of this not causing a mega stink.
absolute cracker though. and a golfing pedigree to boot.
on topic. the support for the tories is fragile so some may be prised off to other parties if a valid class argumnet can be won.
i think the tory line needs to be that the expenses troughers who thieved the most were labour people pretending to be one of the common people when in fact they just wanted to spend spend spend knowing they would get their ermine from the lords asap if they got caught.
maybe even saying that a private eductaion in many areas is helpful if the schools are mediocre. and that a private education helped give aleg up to many of the labour cabinet as well as the potential tory one.
UKIP - minimum share of 4%
BNP - minimum share of 2%
Green - minimum share of 2%
Other others - mimnimum share of 1%
Total - 9%
Anyone who thinks others as a whole are going to get anything less than 9% is living in cloud cuckoo land IMHO. I think they’ll probably get quite a bit more than 9% actually. (These figures don’t include SNP/PC).
16 The population of the UK has gone up - so I assume the electorate has too. Older people tend to me more conservative. The journey from Red to Blue is a much more common life story than the journey from Blue to Red. Pensioners also have alot to be angry about and are, I suspect, a big chunk of the missing Tory voters from last time. The GE may not see Dave installed on a Blue wave so much as a blue rinse wave.
Immigrants are not a Labour block vote either (as many in Labour assume) - especially the very hardworking Chinese and Indian communities for whom the whole Labour ’something for nothing’ ethos stinks particularly badly.
18 Andy. The polls reflect the UK as a whole. You may well be right in the seats where the minor parties stand but that then gets heavily diluted because they don’t stand everywhere.
19 - Patrick, I take your point but as I understand it the minor parties are putting up more candidates than ever before. UKIP for example are intending to contest nearly all the seats this time according to one comment I saw somewhere.
18 - I think UKIP are very unlikely to get anywhere near to 4% nationally. They received just over 2% last time out and I don’t see them nearly doubling it. Frankly I do not see them going very far under Lord Pearson of Rannoch.
In reply to 16, UKIP supporters tend to be older and they have a much higher turnout than other groups.
Another factor is that turnout among 18-24 year olds has been so appalling in the last couple of elections that it can’t really go any lower and could well rise significantly - and I think they’re more likely to vote Green or BNP (ie. female students voting Green and young working class white men voting BNP).
The least likely groups to vote for minor parties are those in the middle age-groups, but their turnout is neither as high as older voters nor likely to increase in the same way that the younger age groups might.
In a tight election it all comes down to distribution. Others votes cast in the wrong seats could be enough to see Labour MPs through with the opposition vote split. Alternately get all the others votes behind the candidate most likely to unseat, and we could have a landslide.
It all depends on if there is a “time for a change” momentum. Clearly there isn’t now, but there is plenty of time.
Mike,
Any enthusisam to run a thread on the subject of turnout and its impact on the result? My own view is that this is the gorilla in the corner we don’t talk about much - which is odd given the core nature of this site.
We have seen declining tunrouts at GE time because up until now there was no credible Tory government in waiting and Labour had not visibly destroyed the nation’s finances. We were doing ok - or so we thought - and boredom set in. Governments lose elections, oppositions don’t win them.
This time around it’s totally different. The Tories have a leader and a shadow cabinet that is better than the incumbent. The tim’s of the world may be scathing but the fact is that Dave looks like a PM in waiting to most people. Labour have utterly fuc*ed the economy and debt is out of control. The realisation of the state we’re in will increasingly lead to anger. The next GE is going to be most important for ages - a vote on a ‘public sector we can afford - or not’. A big Tory win will slowly reverse the last decade.
So my contention is that we’ll see unprecendented numbers turning out to vote and that this will be hugely to the benefit of the Conservatives. The gaps between votes cast for the main parties in most seats are dwarfed by the number of no-shows. That may not be true this time. I think the polls don’t take this adequately into account. If people return to vote who will gain?
Turnout will almost certainly be somewhere between 65% and 70%.
24 - I don’t know what you mean by unprecedented numbers. I don’t think it’ll be anywhere near the 78% turnout in 1992 for example.
25 Well turnout for 2005 was just over 60%. I think we’ll get over 70% this time - but let’s say 70%. That’s an additional 10% of the electorate. That’s about 4 to 4.5 million additional voters this time around. It will indeed be something like this more or less. I do believe any serious political punter or pollster or predictor must ask themselves what they think the turnout will be and wherre the likely increased votes will go.
Given that in 2005 Labour got 9.5 million and the Tories a bit under 9 million votes - well 4.5 million is a huge, huge block of votes.
Where’s it likely to go? (Clue: More or less likely to be supporters of the ‘Gordon brown - five more years’ campaign?). The Tory voter strike could be well and truly over.
24
24
Patrick
Unprecedented turnout.
I have never ever in my life assisted any Party at a GE.
This one, I will help ALL my neighbours get to the polling station to vote anti Labour.
Go figure if I am alone to be so motivated..
Staffs Moorlands is a Labour marginal.
27 You just answered my contention at 26. It’s probably horribly arrogant to say so, but I think all the polls are under-counting the Tories because of this issue. They filter for past vote too much. There’s a whole crowd of voters who will turn up on the day that I can’t see on their radar screens right now.
28 ..and maybe that is what really drives the Smithson / Thomas law - Labour always get whatever the worst poll predicts…
10 - Re the Lib Dems.
I don’t know whether you saw this, but if true that the Tories have conceded seats like Cheadle, then a strong Lib Dem performance is far more likely than a weak one
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/politics/article6946686.ece
24 28
Also the flipside of the coin is will Labour voters bother if they think the election is heading from them ?
The Sun really do have it in for Sally Bercow (note: an alumnus of Marlborough College). I wonder how long these stories will go on?
http://www.thescottishsun.co.uk/scotsol/homepage/news/2760473/Labour-MP-hopeful-Sally-Bercow-admits-she-has-used-drugs.html
http://www.dailystar.co.uk/news/view/111543/Sally-Bercow-smoked-cannabis-at-school/
The electorate is about 45 million. So every 1% increase in the overall turnout means 450,000 extra voters on the day.
Do these voters who previously voted once upon a time not recently look just exactly the same as the ones who did bother last time? What motivates such people to get off the sofa this time around? Do the party splits we see in polls apply equally to them? Are these the real swing voters - as opposed to people who always vote but just not always for the same party?
So anyone can play the game. Decide what turnout over 60% you expect and multiply each extra 1% by 450,000. Then decide what share of those returning votes you think each party will get - and why they are bothering this time.
27 Mad - in fact Baxter has the Tories winning this seat by a margin of almost 20%, but then summarises the position thus:
“This seat is not safe and voters have a real say on their MP”
Extraordinary!
32 Stuart. Out of interest - why did you note she went to Marlborough?
So which lot of chicken entrails do we get to pore over this week?
Populus?
ComRes?
Angus Reid, it’s been suggested by OGH, will be out at the end of the week.
33 So far as I am aware, there are currently no betting markets on the GE turnout percentage.
Cue Shadsy to lead the field as usual. Btw, do such markets usually include/exclude NI which tends to produce a lower turnout than the UK as a whole?
Agree with Patrick at 7, with two additions
- Labour are broke and the Tories aren’t; this will show.
- I am largely with Tapestry in expecting massive voting fraud in favour of Labour.
- How are “others” likely to split at the race gets tighter?
I really do not think that the UKIP, BNP and Green vote is going to “split” so late in the day. We are just too close to Polling Day now. The only thing limiting their vote share on GE polling day is that none of them will have a full slate of candidates.
Where these 3 parties do put up candidates, they will generally attract a significant numbers of voters in those particular seats. If all 3 of them manage to stand in at least 400 seats then it is not inconceivable that Others could land up with approx 10% of the Great Britain vote share.
The more interesting question is what do this chunk of voters do in the seats where UKIP, BNP and Greens are not standing? I suspect that a large chunk will simply not vote, and the ones who do will split largely in line with voting patterns in that seat. I find it very hard to believe that this chunk of voters will be the cause of more than one or two surprise Tory gains or surprise Labour holds. Therefore I utterly dismiss the Labour party election planners’ claim that Others can help to close “the gap by a further 3 percentage points”.
I also totally dismiss their 5% hopes placed on Lib Dems voters favouring them. The only place where Lib Dem voters unquestionably favour LAB over CON is in Scotland, and I’m afraid that 1 or 2 surprise Labour holds in Scotland (eg. East Renfrewshire and Edinburgh South West), due to Lib Dem voters tactically backing Labour, is just not going to save Labour’s bacon on a GB-wide level.
So, nothing to see here. Now, move along please…
Liam Byrne on Sky, “services won’t suffer as long as we have guarantees in place” .. what a klutz.
Remember “50 days to save the world”?
Well, seems like it was more Labour hot air
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/copenhagen-climate-change-confe/6745082/Copenhagen-climate-summit-Gordon-Browns-climate-change-record-attacked.html
“Gordon Brown’s environmental policies have come under attack as governments from around world meet to negotiate a new deal on climate change in Copenhagen.
His former chief scientist Professor Sir David King said he frequently urged Downing Street to spend money on energy saving measures in order to create jobs and cut carbon – but was repeatedly ignored.
And in a separate interview with the Daily Telegraph, the world’s top environmental watchdog Achim Steiner, the head of the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP), also said the Labour Government failed to “pick the low hanging fruit” of insulating homes and investing in renewable energy.
Mr Brown has sought to lead the world on climate change and criticism from such high profile figures will come as an embarrassment on the opening day of the UN Climate Change Conference.”
Hang on, I remember TWO announcements on insulation don’t I? Not more sound and no action surely???
40 -he was poor wasn’t he.
The others share will depend partly on the number of candidates stand.I would expect Greens,UKIP and BNP all to field many more candidates than last time.That alone will boost the sahre of vorte for Others which I think was 8% in 2005.The current levls will fall back to around 10-11% in my view.Wher will the c3% share drop from this go?
No doubt more to the Tories than anyone else.The Libs might pick up 1%.
I dont have as much confidence as som eother posters in the tactical voting by Labour oters helping the Lib dems.It might help a little in Lib/con marginals where Labour are in a poor third place and th eline “Dont let the tories back in X” plays well.But where Labour is nin poor third palce the vote has already been sqeezed hard and there is notmuch more to come.
I certainly can’t see tactical voting by Labour voters in Con/lib marginals happening at all -and if it id certainly not on a scale sufficent to overcome the swing to the Tory’s.Finally in Lab/Lib marginals There is adanger that the disillusioned Labour vote will fragent to BNP/UKIP rather than automatically going tothe Lib dem challenger.
Stuart, while you are here, we put up three new Scottish seats yesterday;
Angus
SNP 8/15
Conservatives 11/8
Labour 100/1
Liberal Democrats 100/1
Dumfries & Galloway
Conservatives 1/4
Labour 5/2
Liberal Democrats 100/1
SNP 100/1
Perth & North Perthshire
SNP 4/7
Conservatives 5/4
Labour 100/1
Liberal Democrats 100/1
39
Agree Stuart.
Core Green, BNP, UKIP voters aren’t going to change their minds, and if there are more opportunities to vote because of more candidates then their total vote obviously will be higher. This partly what people saw at the Euro elections.
A further factor is the low motivation of voters. The big 3 have got a general malaise to overcome. Voters are in the mood to make a protest and see few significant difference between the major parties. The alternatives are vote one of the fringe parties or stay at home. All parties will suffer from the fringe voters and Labour may suffer most from the stay at home factor.
31. Alanbrooke - That’s interesting - that Labour voters may not bother to vote if they think they’ve already lost. But there could be a counter-trend as well - that disillusioned Labour voters will turn out for Labour anyway , thinking that it’s safe to vote Labour if they’re going to lose. But I really don’t know. It’s going to be fascinating.
42 - yes floater he was. he mentioned the 2 week guarantee on cancer as well. That’s all smoke and mirrors as well.
35. Patrick
Just another example of a Labour politician who went to a “toff” school. Their word, not mine.
44. Thanks Shadsy!!
100/1 for SNP in Dumfries & Galloway?!? Now, I fully concur that the SNP are a long-shot in that seat, but not that long!! Worth a fiver of anybody’s money, surely?
I hate to “do an Oliver” and hold my soup bowl out after you being such a sterling chap and pricing up 3 markets, but I’m still waiting for a bookie to price up Stirling and Argyll&Bute (and several other interesting races, but let’s not get greedy.)
46
could be, but going on the basis of 2001 and 2005 when a lot of Tories knew they hadn’t a chance what would you rather do on a nice May Day - drag yourself to the polling station or go and do something enjoyable with life ?
Morning all and just before leaving for the day my humble thoughts.
Over the weekend we saw the public school educated Alistair Darling and Yvette Balls say Gordon Brown wasn’t attacking David Cameron because of his school- downright lie. we all know what we heard.
Over the weekend we heard the politics of spite and jealousy come to the fore. Adam Boulton suggesting the super tax rates kicking in at £150k to enable cabinet ministers to just avoid them was brilliant.
This morning we have Gordon brown’s bunker leaking that by among other things forcing people already at the bottom of the rung, millions of whom cannot read or write properly to do all their benefit claims online and thus save £600 million over 4 years is fantasy politics.
We are in for 5 months of spiteful and fantasy politics from the Labour party.
Do we seriously think that people who have voted for “minor” parties are going to be drawn to that in a GE campaign?
Do we think that a GE several months after VAT has risen again, unemployment has risen by another 250,000 (think of the numerous big job losses this month, Borders books, Threshers wine, Corus)and a week after the first wage packet with the increase in National Insurance kicking in will win Labour new votes?
If you do then back Labour, but if you dont then those who voted for other parties are not voting Labour. Indeed how many hundred thousand 1997-2005 Labour voters will never vote Labour again?
I’d make two points that go against the conventional wisdom on here:
1. There is no hard evidence that the Tories are doing significantly better in the marginals. I suspect they will outperform the UNS predictions, but not to a huge degree. While the predictors say they need a 9-10% lead, 7-8% would likely be enough. This is backed up by Yougov marginals poll. On the standard voting question it had the Conservatives 14 points ahead producing a 70 seat majority. Put those numbers into Wells seat calculator and you get a Conservative majority of 72. The marginals poll showed wide variation - so although the Conservatives were doing well in the Northern marginals they were underperforming against the Lib Dems. It also showed Labour doing better in seats they held, than in seats they do not.
2. Tactical unwind. A lot of store is put into this but I’m not sure how valid it is. In 2005 the Conservatives outperformed UNS. How many people voted tactically in this election? I would argue a lot fewer than 1997 - nobody thought Howard was going to win. The marginals poll showed very little tactical voting - except by Labour voters in Con / Lib Dem marginals. There may be a late swing towards tactical voting by Lib Dems against Labour. There is no evidence for this though.
Remember 1992 - with a 7.5% national lead the Conservatives just squeaked in. Since then the bias in the electoral system has grown, not weakened. Differential turnout is a big factor in this and continues to be. I expect turnout in safe Tory seats to go up next time, while in safe Labour seats it is likely to fall.
So, the Conservatives look set for an overall majority and have a lead in the polls of 10 - 13 points. However, if this falls to the 7 - 10 point range they will be on the cusp of a Hung Parliament.
Easterross
Love the comment by Boulton.
It just needs some journalist now to pick up on this and ask why the cabinet aren’t taking a 20% pay cut to share the nation’s pain.
Parochial and anecdotal - but I live in the part of North London which has seen a Green surge due to support from Labour voters disaffected over Iraq. Perplexed as many of these voters are as to how they will vote next spring, those I speak to are adamant that they will not vote Labour.
Stuart Dickson @39: “The more interesting question is what do this chunk of voters do in the seats where UKIP, BNP and Greens are not standing? I suspect that a large chunk will simply not vote…”
I wouldn’t have thought many voters would know in advance whether they even had a candidate in their seat for their minor party of choice. Are voters who turn up at the polling station intending to vote for a minor party really going to just give up and go home without voting when they turn out not to be on the ballot?
Shadsy, are you fully aware of the political history of Dumfries and Galloway? I’m sure you are, but just in case it escaped your attention, the SNP defeated Ian Lang, then Secretary of State for Scotland, in Galloway & Upper Nithsdale (which forms the majority of the new D&G seat) at the 1997 UK GE, and although we lost the seat to the Tories in 2001, it was only by 74 votes.
As recently as 2007 the SNP came 2nd, with 10,054 votes, in the G&UN Holyrood seat.
Here is the June 2009 Euro result in D&G council area (note: not the same boundary as the Westminster seat -> the eastern part where the SNP is weaker is excluded from the Westminster seat):
Con 12,239
SNP 8,247
Lab 5,733
UKIP 3,404
LD 2,927
Grn 2,165
BNP 1,044
http://www.dumgal.gov.uk/index.aspx?articleid=7018
So, it is a mystery to me why Ladbrokes price up the SNP at precisely the same odds as the Scottish Lib Dems, who have no record in the constituency.
48 Fair dinkum. I was only keen to know because I went to Marlborough too.
A very good school that has produced some lefties (such as Mrs Bercow and Clare Margetson at the Guardian) and some righties (such as Daniel Hannan). So having a ‘toff’ education seems to be no predictor of political outlook.
Still on Dumfries & Galloway:
Shadsy, that Labour 5/2 price is utter pants. You are not going to attract a single punter with terrible odds like that. Labour only become value at about 20/1.
IMHO it is quite concievable that Russell Brown MP could end up in 3rd place when all the votes are counted.
Con 1/4 looks about right though. In fact it is probably quite good value. The Scottish Tories are surely a shoo-in in this seat. Let’s put it this way: if they don’t gain this seat then they are not going to gain any seats whatsoever in Scotland, and could even be heading for trouble in neighbouring DCT.
55-I was a bit surprised by the SNP odds too!!
Guido yesterday:
“Andrew Marr (old boy of Loretto, the very posh Scottish boarding school) asked Alastair Darling (another old boy of the £24,000-a-year school) whether it really matters that David Cameron went to a very posh English boarding school?”
Nicola Bates, Con PPC selected in Sheffield Hallam, Nick Clegg’s seat.
http://conservativehome.blogs.com/goldlist/2009/12/nicola-bates-selected-to-take-on-nick-clegg-in-sheffield-hallam.html
56 Patrick. Is Marlborough better as a school or a fag ?? …. and for that matter what of the school fags ??
It’s early …. Woman - more porridge !!
Oh dear,
Monday morning and Sterling and the markets take a dive. Given this government’s record a late March GE poll looks better by the day.
On topic:
Others should be about 10-11% by time of the GE. The SNP/PC/EDP alliance should poll about 4-5%, add in the fringe UKIP/BNP/Green/OMRLP-Croydon-branch parties and that should allow for the three main parties to split the remaining 89% of the electorate.
URW is right: it’s easy money to back the Tories. The real money/value will probably be made on the seats-market.
57 Stuart. There are some of us who might think your wittering on to ’shadsy’ about this opportunity nothing short of treachery !!
Leave the man to have a few coffees and stretch his legs in Ladbrokes Towers whilst we stretch your neck here at PB !!
ANother hypothetical to ponder Mike which kind of goes against a squeeze scenario.
The 2003 election saw the ‘others’ increase and a pretty bad result for the SNP. One reason I’ve heard is that it was perceived wisdom that Labour would come out on top and the SNP would not displace them. This saw the anti-Labour vote break to the ‘others’ in some form of statement type politics.
If the perceived wisdom for the next UK election is that the Tories are unassailable and Labour cannot win then could there be the possibility of the anti-Tory vote fracturing.
61 Err….
School = Marlborough (pronounced Morlbra, with an English accent)
Fag = Marlboro (pronounced Marrrlborrow, with a yank accent)
School fags? Officially long since gone. In reality there was a bit of younger kids doing the bidding of older kids in my time. Sometimes in collusion for mutual amusement.
The housemasters often had to show prospective parents around. Usually at lunchtime for some reason probably to do with said master’s diary. I remember one occasion when we saw master plus parents coming. Two 18 year olds agreed with a 13 year old to seat him backwards on a chair in the library and tie him to it by his neck with a bicycle lock, stripped from the waist up. Enter parents and master to see the 18 year olds whipping the screaming 13 year old. 3 kids all got in trouble (a month of stone picking in the Wilderness as I recall) - but much hilarity had by all.
60. Interesting stuff.
“Nick Clegg will defend a notional majority of 7,416 over the Conservatives, meaning that Nicola would require a swing of 8.1% to unseat him. Until the seat was seized by the Lib Dems in 1997, it had been held by the Conservatives for all but two years since 1885.”
Were you up for Clegg?
Re smalller parties vote splitting-
I think the Greens vote will hold-people who say they vote Green at this stage do so because they believe in the Green message. I think the BNP vote is much more of an emotional vote and therefore more likely to change-up or down. A terrorist attack in the run up to the election if shown to come from a home based Islamic group from the North will sadly galvanise their support. UKIP supporters are IMO a mixture of believers and emotional supporters. So in conclusion Greens to at least hold and build. UKIP some movement but not as much as DC would like. BNP as always the joker in the pack.
65 Patrick
…. Very good. I’ve pebble picking in mind for Stewart …. Brighton comes to mind !!
63. Sorry Jack. My lips are sealed (that’ll be a first…)
‘Independence Poll - SNP fight back’
TNS/BRNB (formerly System 3) fieldwork 25 November – 2 December 2009, 998 polled.
Do you agree or disagree that the Scottish Government should negotiate a new settlement with the UK Government so that Scotland becomes an independent state:
Agree: 31% (+2)
Disagree: 46% (-11)
Don’t Know: 23%
http://www.snptacticalvoting.com/2009/12/independence-poll-snp-fight-back.html
66 Dave B. At least thirty have been - apparently !!
I’m not sure the, ‘others’ share will shrink as we get nearer the GE. Voters are so, ‘pi**ed off’ with the major parties, that UKIP/BNP will probably benefit as a protest vote, it might even increase.
Including Buckingham.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/politics/6729586/Tory-voters-alienated-by-John-Bercow-preparing-to-back-Ukip.html
#70, by Stuart Dickson December 7th, 2009 at 8:56 am
Do you agree or disagree that the Scottish Government should negotiate a new settlement with the UK Government so that Scotland becomes an independent state:
Agree: 31% (+2)
Disagree: 46% (-11)
Don’t Know: 23%
So that will be a No to Scottish independence then….
68. I’ve never been to Brighton Jack. Do they have many pebbles?
Any cowrie shells? My childhood holidays on the Altantic coast of Harris - white sand as far as the eye could see - were punctuated by cowrie-hunting expeditions.
41
Professor Sir David King and Achim Steiner can talk all they want - in the Telegraph - but until the BBC deigns to to give their words equal time with the utterances of Miliband (min) then it is as if they have no criticisms at all…
My understanding is the NI tax rises are slated to come in April 2011 not 2010 - I wonder why….
They tried HPN1 (Hung Parliament Narrative 1) based on an actual poll and a lot of supposition. The Ipsos MORI poll selected turned out to be a rogue or an outlier.
Now they are trying out HPN2 (Hung Parliament Narrative Number 2) for size. This is a very different ‘N’ from HPN1, but not surprisingly it will equally justify the result they expect to achieve in the end of the day.
Yes, they say, the Polls show Labour losing at the moment by a sizeable margin, but the postal polling wizard will still work his magic to ensure the Conservatives don’t win. Shall we call it ‘tactical’ voting? Much less embarrassing than admitting what we are really up to….rigging the result of the election.
Jack W @ 71
Unless I misunderstood something about Clegg’s s*xuality, I think it was very much 30 down for Clegg.
75 StuartD. Brighton beach :
http://www.antipodean.org/photos/SSW/brighton06.jpg
Enough pebbles ?!?
re 52. Kieran - The level of tactical voting in 2005 was much higher than you suggest.
In its final poll ICM found that one in ten of all Labour voters answered YES to the question “Did/will you vote … because it is your first choice or because you want to try and keep another party from winning in your Constituency?”
With LD voters the proportion was 30%.
79 Serf. Depends on your definition of “up for” !!
73 Problem with that article is it is written by Rosa Prince, a journalist I personally have not found to be prescient in political matters.
Like posters above, I can’t see others doing worse than the last election. That should give them about 12%, including the SNP and PC. Most of the increase for the minors will go to the Greens and BNP, not UKIP, IMO.
The LDs are consistently about 19/20% in the polls and I can’t see that changing much either. They’ll probably lose a lot of votes where they don’t really need them for the purpose of this election, but do well in their own seats and target seats.
Where Labour think all these other and LD votes are coming from is beyond me. I suppose they’ve got to cheer up the troops somehow.
75
Brighton Beach pebbles, yes but small fry. Now if your looking for, ‘REAL’ pebbles try this.
http://www.chesilbeach.org/
45. Alanbrooke - “Voters are in the mood to make a protest and see few significant difference between the major parties.”
This is a fundamental truth that very, very few PBers would be willing to admit: there really is b***er all difference between the 3 main UK parties, at least in the eyes of most voters. They are widely perceived as being “all the same” -> one of the very few success stories of the Labour Party’s PR over the last couple of years -> tar The Other Two with the same brush.
brown speaking on sky news now - shameful….just shameful. parallel universe stuff
87 Not a fan of Sky News?
75
Oh! just a warning Stuart if you do go to Chesil don’t do it.
http://archive.thisisdorset.net/2007/4/6/124597.html
Nonononono don’t and I mean it.
81 Mike S. I wonder if this “Times” story of Tories pulling resources out of more difficult marginals is worthy of wider circulation.
Hat tip to ‘tim’ for the spot last night.
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/politics/article6946686.ece
Were the BNP to contest between 300-400 seats, it’s not difficult to see them winning between 500,000-1,000,000 votes, thereby landing PP’s odds of 11/8 available on this band:
“Worst Case” 300 seats x 4% average share of vote x 72,000 registered voters/constituency x 60% turnout = 518,400 votes.
“Best Case” 400 seats x 5.5% average share of vote x 72,000 registered voters/constituency x 65% turnout = 1,029,600 votes.
I have been unable to find any reference to the number of seats the BNP intends to contest in next year’s GE, but the “worst case” example above assumes a very substantial increase over the <100 candidates they fielded in 2005. Anything fewer than 250 candidates would probably make it very unlikely that they could reach the 500,000 votes level.
Dave sometimes lands a blow on Gordon’s lalanomics. Have you noticed though that the real headline and poll moving stuff always seems to after George Osborne has savaged the latest Labour number nonsense. I expect that Darling will either have to fess up to Labour’s destruction of the futuer prospects of this country or to tell some blatant and laughable lies about it very soon. (When is the PBR?)
Expect a well prepared anihilation from George and some quite disastrous headlines for Labour thereafter. Every horrible number and tax is going to be analysed to death. The markets want to know how we will repay our debt and Darling had better give them an answer. The Labour epiphany is still only young.
91
If BNP stand 300 candidates and lose, say, 200 deposits, that’s 100k pounds of the Queen’s money down the swanny.
I’ll be amazed if any of BNP/Green/UKIP stand that many candidates. Where would they get the funds?
Why’s he wibbling on about iPhones ?
90 - one could, were one so inclined, make an argument that this strengthens the chances of a Tory majority.
I appreciate I’ll be accused of wishful thinking here, Tory Herd Membership and so on; but one of the few serious dangers to Dave getting the keys to number 10 is complacency.
Sensibly focussing on what’s needed at the expense of what’d be nice but isn’t essential strikes me as a mature and pragmatic decision.
90. That piece might have more currency if it weren’t for the laughable attempt at the end to suggest the Tories are in danger of infiltration by Christian fundamentalists. Typical crass Labour propaganda effort.
URW
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The Mirror: ‘Speaker: I’m not sexpert’
http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/top-stories/2009/12/07/speaker-i-m-not-sexpert-115875-21878882/
When was the last time Westminster had a Speaker that attracted popular respect? An awful long time ago. This drip, drip, drip of idiotic Speaker-related trash is surely an additional element poisoning general public opinion about the London parliament.
re 90. The peg for this piece is that article which in many way does not ring true.
Thus we have “The Tories are also finding it more difficult to persuade working-class voters in constituencies in the North of England to switch their support.”
This is a standard piece of Labour spin, which does not fit with the polling, and comes, one assumes from the same source quoted in the header above.
98 Not that long ago: Boothroyd was certainly both popular and respected.
93. I’ll be amazed if any of BNP/Green/UKIP stand that many candidates. Where would they get the funds?
Adolf?
Mary had a little swan. It was a Black Swan.
99 Certainly doesn’t fit the Angus Reid Polling Mike.
La la la speech from Gordon this morning - ” we wont throw the cancer ridden granny onto the street like the Tories “.
Good god, Brown clearly hasn’t pre-read the speech he’s reading, bumbling the phrases (key one’s too) There’s also evidence of copying Tory policy, remember the Public Jobs that pay more than the PM? As with IHT, he’s rehashed the idea to £150,000.
It’s clear that he’s finished as a PM, This isn’t statesmanlike, as many a Scouser would say, “It’s a state man, er like….”
Trying to extrapolate from small numbers is always prone to error but FWIW local survey work done over the last year suggests that the others (especially UKIP) vote IS going to be higher than in 2005. As others have said the overall % for others depends on the number of candidates but certainly over 10% and maybe as much as 12%. I include Nationalists in these figures.
The UKIP increase is coming more from the Tories than Lib Dems or Labour.
Just had a conversation with a young person at an education focused eatablishment about our annual subscriptions, which are £101.00 paid in 10 monthly instalments.
When I said that would be £10.10 per month, she said let me get my calculator out to check. After much audible keying she confirmed the figure.
This does not give me much confidence about numeracy of the general population.
‘Support for independence at lowest level for two years’
http://www.heraldscotland.com/news/politics/support-for-independence-at-lowest-level-for-two-years-1.990388
‘Support rising for independence, say SNP’
http://www.pressandjournal.co.uk/Article.aspx/1514836?UserKey=
Thanks,Gadfly. I will use the highlights on special occasions.
99. Correct Mike. The whole thing looks like a spin-machine concoction.
‘Gray faces inquiry over Marqueegate’
http://news.scotsman.com/scotland/Gray-faces-inquiry-over-Marqueegate.5888418.jp
I have to say that this line on Rosa Prince’s article wins the “WTF” prize?:
“His election as Speaker was secured largely with the backing of Labour MPs, to the fury of Tories who said that it was the turn of the Conservatives to hold the influential post.”
Morning all
I think we need to try to understand a little about the motivation of people who respond to opinion polls. For example, when ex-Labour supporters say they will vote BNP, or ex-Conservative voters say they will vote UKIP, is it possible that they are trying to send a message via the opinion poll to the Labour or Conservative party leaderships respectively, rather than expressing a true voting intention?
Certainly, some of the rather rapid switches in polling figures suggest this might be the case.
Mike I tried to post this but I got my username wrong and it got caught in the spam trap! Can you delete the original please? Thanks!
Morning all!
Does anyone think that all the “eat the rich” stories over the weekend were to soften us up for some really bad news on Wednesday? Perhaps there’s going to be an announcement on NIC or the basic rate of tax or a huge hike in fuel duty? Last year the PBR run up was dominated by leaks about how we were all going to be given a pre Christmas tax break but in reality we got very little. I think there’s going to be a lot of pain for everyone on Wednesday and the government is trying to use the “hang the bankers!” mood as a disraction.
Speaking of Wednesday keep an eye on events in Dublin, the Budget is due to annouce massive cuts in public spending cuts and cuts of up to 7% in public sector wages. The unions are threatening massive industrial action in protest. The Coalition’s plight hasn’t been helped by the decision of Noel Grealish, an independent TD, to say he will not automatically support the Budget, which gives the government 81 sure votes in the Dail while the opposition can count on 83. If Cowen can’t bring theindependents on board then his goverent could fall this week. There could either be a new FG/Labour government cobbled together or a GE in the new year.
Quite reminescent of the last days of Callaghan isn’t it?!
93,101 UKIP alone lost 451 deposits in 2005. Presumably, in many cases, the candidates standing for the fringe parties are prepared to put up their own deposits - after all £500 is hardly a fortune.
114 Indeed, it would be good if we could get an explanation of that greater mystery, why people say will vote Lib Dem. A cry for help perhaps?
111. runnymede
And what a coincidence that is was tim who knew about it first.
‘The pygmy politics of Labour and the Nats show they prefer scoring points to serving voters’
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/comment/columnists/alancochrane/6749739/The-pygmy-politics-of-Labour-and-the-Nats-show-they-prefer-scoring-points-to-serving-voters.html
99 Mike are you ok ?
Last couple of weeks your comments are very tetchy.
Cameron will be walking in the door soon enough.
115 A siginifcant cut in public sector wages whilst avoiding complusory redundancies at the front line is a very sensible way ahead (but slashing the outreach co-ordinators and bin inspectors and quangos).
The UK needs to find a staggering 200 billion a year from somewhere. Much, much better that spending takes the strain rather than tax as it is only growth that will ultimately stabilise the gap between tax and spending.
A smaller state please Mr Cameron and Mr Osborne.
95 Andy D. A perfectly valid point.
96 runnymede. The article mentions one case in the context of differing selection processes. That hardly invalidates the entire article.
99 Mike S. Is it “Labour spin” or accurate information on longer chance marginals ??
I’m minded to agree with Andy that it’s a perfectly sensible tactical move by the Conservatives.
115 TOS, I’m half expecting some kind of pre election giveaway to the less well off, the justification being that the Fat Cat City types are finally being forced to make a larger contribution towards a ‘fairer society’.
Mike Smithson @81:
“With LD voters the proportion [who said they were voting as they were to keep another party from winning in their constituency] was 30%.”
Seems like a very large number - are 30% of LibDem voters even in constituencies where the LibDems are in with a chance? Or have most of these people been conned by dodgy barcharts?
In the opposite direction, I remember trying to persuade people in Oxford West and Abington in 1997 to vote LibDem to keep the Tories out. What made it difficult was that Labour were furiously spinning that it was _them_ who had the best chance of beating the Tories. There had been a minor boundary change, and Labour were using that to claim that their poor third place in the previous election wasn’t relevant.
Anyhow, this seems to me like a big problem with the idea that tactical voting will swing a lot of seats in either direction; Even if they wanted to vote tactically, they don’t know the right way to do it. And a lot of people’s tactical votes are probably counter-productive…
118. Well yes that thought had crossed my mind…
Sunil P. This might amuse you when you catch up to read the site.
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/police-uturn-on-photographers-and-antiterror-laws-1834626.html
But will the staff at Stratford International have read the Indy today?
#112 , Stuart Dickson December 7th, 2009 at 9:45 am
Scottish Labour leader Iain Gray faced calls for an independent audit of a donation he received after it emerged that council taxpayers may have unwittingly contributed towards his campaign funds.
Mr Gray accepted £800 from Prestonpans Labour Party, which had used council resources worth about £6,700 – in particular, a marquee – for its annual fundraisers.
[Src: Wikipedia]
One-nil to JackW!
119/126 ar.runnymede. ‘tim’ notes mildy favourable government story shocker.
121 Absolutely - there’s limited scope for raising taxes without wrecking the economy altogether.
Labour have hired almost one million
voter fodderpublic sector workers since they came into office - what in God’s name do they all do?re 124. If Labour has got polling that supports this then let them publish it. Otherwise assume they are just telling porkies.
This is one of those lines that sounds plausible to those in the south who have never been “up north” and assume that they are all working class.
The marginals polling in the north has the Tories almost level pegging with Labour with the C2DEs but with a big lead amongst the ABC1s.
Shadsy shortens the SNP to 33/1 for Dumfries & Galloway.
I hope that you faster PBers got a quid or two on! Sometimes a long-shot is worth a small sum.
132 StuartD. One wonders who alerted ’shadsy’ to his little error !!
129. “Labour have hired almost one million voter fodder public sector workers since they came into office - what in God’s name do they all do?”
Vote Labour?
So Labour strategists are basing their assertions on fairy tales and falsehoods.
I personally won’t rush to correct them; let them wallow in their collective delusion, they’ll misallocate their precious few resources in the GE.
Guido has this on Brown’s efficiency savings, cough, cough.
“Drill down and what is he promising? £3 billion in cuts is less than 1/2% of government expenditure. He has no idea as to the magnitude of action required.”
Complete with diagram for the likes of Will Straw.
http://order-order.com/2009/12/07/browns-cuts-are-trivial/
By the way, the Evening Standard has headline on Baroness Scotland’s cleaner appears in court today, whilst her employer is elevated to Desert Island Discs.
Brown unveils £3bn more ’savings’
the headline not quite as “impressive” as the overnight one.
125
I wait to see what happens with Clegg on tactical voting. I suspect he’s not so naive to endorse it.
It is noticeable that Campbell and Mandelson who both endorsed tactical voting in 1997 are now back running the show. Tactical voting is just that, once they have the vote the short term trick has worked and those in power won’t want to share it. the LDs need to focus on strategic voting ie replacing Lab\Cons in sufficient seats to be seen as one of the 2 viable alternatives. Where they have done this they have tended to hold on to their seats.
123. You seem in a very credulous frame of mind at present, Jack.
135 - I think better puts it in perspective,
“Gordon’s big government bureaucracy overspends by some £3 billion weekly”
Well done Gordo you have saved a weeks worth of overspend, just 51 weeks more to find…
136. As Guido points out, £3 billion is the weekly deficit.
His former chief scientist Professor Sir David King said he frequently urged Downing Street to spend money on energy saving measures in order to create jobs and cut carbon – but was repeatedly ignored.
And in a separate interview with the Daily Telegraph, the world’s top environmental watchdog Achim Steiner, the head of the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP), also said the Labour Government failed to “pick the low hanging fruit” of insulating homes and investing in renewable energy.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/copenhagen-climate-change-confe/6745082/Copenhagen-climate-summit-Gordon-Browns-climate-change-record-attacked.html
132. Jack, I thought that as a landed laird you would not be too upset at missing out on that opportunity. Or is the black faced sheep and hairy coo business not as lucrative as it used to be?
117. PfP. I think there is mileage in a study of how the declining real-terms cost of the deposit - and the reduced threshold for retaining it - has changed our political system.
Back in 1951 (I think) the Liberals ran only a small slate of candidates because they couldn’t afford to lose as many deposits as they had in 1950, when they had managed to insure themselves against lost deposits with Lloyd’s of London (who understandably weren’t keen to repeat the experience). The Liberals at that stage still had several wealthy donors on hand, but the cost of fighting on a broad front was too great.
By contrast, in modern times even relatively small parties such as Natural Law and the Green have fought relatively large numbers of seats. Is it time either to raise the deposit (or the threshold for retaining it), or to do away with deposits altogether in favour of a much larger number of signatures on nomination papers as a means of showing a candidate’s breadth of support?
Oh dear one of PB.com best friends in a spot of bother,
Rod Liddle, the journalist and magazine columnist, has been accused of racism after suggesting in a blog that young African-Caribbean men were responsible for most of the crime in London.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/politics/6749156/Rod-Liddle-accused-of-racism-for-blog.html
By the way, I still think that 33/1 for SNP at D&G represents good value. Probably reasonable value down to at least 15/1.
Right, I’m logging off before I screw up any more value opportunities.
From the Times article:
‘The Tories are also finding it more difficult to persuade working-class voters in constituencies in the North of England to switch their support. “The sort of lifelong Labour Coronation Street terrace voters who came to us because they were so angry about the 10p tax issue have largely returned to Labour again,” said one Tory strategist.’
I think OGH has it right, it may sound good to people in the south but if these are ‘lifelong’ Labour voters then they would have been voting Labour when the Conservatives were wining industrial seats in the north between 1979 and 1997.
I doubt there are many ‘Coronation Street’ areas that elected Conservatives even in 2008 nor is it them that the Conservatives need to do well in.
136 I was surprised to see the return of Lady Prudence in Gordon Brown’s speech, dressed in Margaret Thatcher’s housewifely apron.
Talk of managing Government expenditure prudently as households manage theirs, looking after every penny. Expect that Sarah will be tweeting soon about sorting her pantry out, stocking up with essentials while Gordon makes surprise appearance in Lidl.
Aarrgh Stuart. I was going to load up my Ladbrokes account just for this bet.
Prestonpans was a minor skirmish which sadly got Jacobite hopes up and probably contributed to the losses they suffered later in the rebellion since it suggested a charging rabble could beat a real army.
See Culloden.
127
It’s not only the police and the support officers - they might get the message, after due ‘propogation delay’ - it’s the ‘jobsworths’, who will feel themselves not bound by directives passed down from police authorities and will carry on as before.
139 runnymede. My eyes are very wide open …. to spin from ALL directions !!
Aspects of the “Times” story are perfectly rational. Why would the Conservatives pour time, cash and other resources into safer opposition seats where Tory prospects have diminished somewhat. Pissing in the electoral wind isn’t an overly bright option in my view and Comrade Pickles is many things but slim on politcal nous isn’t one of his failings.
148 - Sounds a bit like a drug addict who won’t admit they have a problem? Just going to cut down a bit on the usage they always say.
The Good Lady Marquee Mark met “Malcom Tucker” (Peter Capaldi) at an awards do yesterday.
She told him he was “unf*ckable”.
Just thought you’d like to know that….
re 125. Thank you for the anecdote. All I was doing was reporting a poll finding. Those are the figures that ICM found. It was the same survey that got reasonably close to the final general election split.
£3bn? Is that all. the BBC where puffing if up as £12bn. However over 4years. I wonder if that is where the number came from?
56 Patrick
Are you the son of a vicar?
144 - I do like the comments by Mr Nelson.
Someone I know works in the courts and says that there are two groups that between them dominate the client list. Black Caribbean and White Irish. Of course, that might just be specific to Brent!
I hate it when people scream racism when unpalatable facts are repeated. It doesn’t help the Caribbean communities to shout racism as so much of the crime is perpetrated against this community too.
143 Stuart. The staff enjoy a wee flutter though !!
150. Happy anniversary Mr Roe.
151 Jack W - Yes, the priority obviously will be to try to win a decent majority. Anything more than that is a nice-to-have.
As it is, they will still have to put heavy resources into a large number of seats.
155 - Yes, thats exactly how it was initially spun. If thats the best junky Brown can do we should be seriously worried. He will probably give an extra £3bn away in the next two weeks in climate change aid away.
Has Brown lost the plot or is this the work of a hostile journalist at the BBC?
“Gordon Brown has said technology such as crime maps and online school reports will cut bureaucracy, as Labour attempts to halve the Budget deficit.”
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/8398116.stm
Could anyone care to work out how much time is saved by putting school reports on line, and how carbon neutral the proposal is?
154 MM. Generally so or especially there and then ?!?
141 I’m sure you are wrong there, why didn’t Gordon Brown declare in his first Budget Speech “# Today with our new programme of training and jobs for young people we are able to expand the national programme of home insulation.
Contractors within the home energy efficiency scheme, and voluntary organisations will be encouraged to take on young people to insulate the homes of pensioners.
This will give jobs and new skills to our young people, help and protection to the elderly, and it will improve our environment.”
and only last year in Gordon Brown’s Big Speech on energy conservation he promised that 6 million homes would be insulated by 2011 and Polly Toynbee spoke breathlessly of the army of loft laggers and opportunities in Green industries that had opened before us.
After 12 years surely there isn’t a home in Britain as yet unvisited by that Army, all our old and weak are snuggly in their Warm Fronted homes?
150
how did ‘propagation’ end up with three ‘o’s?
What’s in my coffee cup?
161: Well no doubt some bod at the department for education will point out that lots of parents have no internet access, so all reports will be to be printed out anyway.
162 JackW - the circumstances to be clarified when she gets home!!
165. Didn’t Gordon give everyone a computer and broadband a year or two ago?
The Times article is a mixture of spin and journalism. It makes some assertions of fact that it claims to have received from Conservative spokesmen - I have no reason to doubt the truth of those statements.
It also contains some comments that doesn’t stand up to much scrutiny. The following paragraph ends with a quotation which is unexceptionable and starts with a more sweeping comment which cannot be directly deduced from it:
“The Tories are also finding it more difficult to persuade working-class voters in constituencies in the North of England to switch their support. “The sort of lifelong Labour Coronation Street terrace voters who came to us because they were so angry about the 10p tax issue have largely returned to Labour again,” said one Tory strategist.”
The journalists seem to have been talking to spinmeisters on both sides and to have been duped by both.
161 - Wonder how much the initial cost will be too?
They should be fairly easy tasks, but then the basic idea of the NHS IT scheme wasn’t that earth shattering but just look what happened to that! Government and IT schemes, especially for cost saving means, often end up as a horrible mess!
167 MM. Well it was kind of Lady MM to consider offering her favours in such abundance. The season of festive giving has gotten off to a sharp start and one to which most will fail to live upto Lady MM’s fine example !!
Oh b***er. Loging back in cos YouGov have just released their detailed datasheets from their Sunday Times poll:
Geographical splite =
London (sss = 283)
Con 45%
Lab 27%
LD 16%
Rest of South Eng (sss = 663)
Con 48%
Lab 20%
LD 20%
Midl/Wales (sss = 449)
Con 43%
Lab 29%
LD 13%
Northern Engl (sss = 516)
Lab 33%
Con 32%
LD 20%
Scotland (sss = 184)
Lab 34%
SNP 22%
Con 19%
LD 19%
http://www.yougov.co.uk/extranets/ygarchives/content/pdf/ST-results_DEC09.pdf
Now I really do have to log off. Have fun!!
155 Yes thats where it comes from, that point was referred to on the Today programme. Complete spin. Its announcing and reannouncing of spending in reverse. Its so typically Labour.
167 - Still waiting for my free computer! What happened to that promise I wonder? Nobody seems to pick him up on these kind of things. It isn’t as if it was some very small announcement by a minor minister, he stood at party conference boosting about it.
158 - Many thanks, Jack.
I still have several decades to catch you up.
I’ve just been catching up with the cricket. I’ll be hoping the Windies can have a good day tonight.
I’m quite looking forward to next years’ Ashes after watching the Aussies bowling this week. They still have a great batting line-up but the attack is crap.
161: I like this:
‘As an example, he said using text messages to remind patients about GP appointments could help save up to £600m a year wasted on missed visits.’
Seriously? Really? £600m? I would expect the majority of missed appointments are by the elderly which either don’t have a mobile, or will just forget anyway.
169 antifrank. That para certainly is the weakest aspect of that article.
172 - Isn’t there going to be another re-re-re-re-re-re-announcement of things like the Tote sale this week as well?
114: “Indeed, it would be good if we could get an explanation of that greater mystery, why people say will vote Lib Dem. A cry for help perhaps?”
Right first time.
165
Yes - from the same school of idiots who promised us the paperless office in the 1980s ! IT leads to more paper.
160 - Oracle, I am seriously worried. Brown doesn’t know how to dig us out of the hole he has created, that’s blatantly obvious. Tax and spend is just too ingrained.
175 - Or people who frankly don’t give a f##k.
171. Hmmm -only 1.5% swingback for the SNP to finish third in Scotland…:)
175 A large number of so-called ‘missed appointments’ are because nobody bothered to tell the patient that the appointment had been set up or changed.
175
maybe we could have a cones hot text - just think of the savings !
deja vu all over again !
179: Indeed. the vast majority of parents will want a paper copy anyway, if only to take to parents evening to hit their kid with. (or the teacher).
175 David Roe. You’re most welcome. I hope you enjoy a fine day.
Enjoy the cricket, I’m catching up with the Barbarians defeat of the All Blacks.
183. Well if there is so much money to be saved from such trifling changes presumably we can cut the public sector spend by 20-25% easily and painlessly, eh? What a relief.
175 - I wonder if that £600m came from the same people who dreamt up the Green Job numbers? You know the ones that included people already working in petrol stations, on gas rigs, that make shoes, etc.
There was some poor reporting in the Sunday Times yesterday as well, re Bercow/UKIP. The article said no major party was allowed to run against the Speaker. Anyone can if they meet the requirements, it’s whether they choose to run a candidate.
185 - I’m sure, especially given it is public sector, that the rules / legal requirements will mean they have to keep paper records as well (probably in triplicate).
160-He will probably give an extra £3bn away in the next two weeks in climate change aid away.
He may well give away £3b we don’t have, but what are the chances it’ll just disappear into a big hole?
I heard on R4 this morning some self important fellow from the African Union salivating at the thought of free money to combat the climate scam. Ten years ago he’d have been screaming for reparations over slavery. Or colonialism. Not sure which was that year’s guilt trip.
175 Most of the speech was nonsense. Riddled with management consulting babble, and fantasy figures.
Events are going to tip the governments hand - what are the odds on a bond strike?
#, by Alanbrooke December 7th, 2009 at 10:30 am
165
Yes - from the same school of idiots who promised us the paperless office in the 1980s !
Sorry Mr Brooke, but that is not fair.
XEROX PARC made the statement. The same organisation that invented the lazerjet, ethernet and god-knows-what.
Please do not confuse IT-engineers with lower forms of life (e.g. politicians and - :cough: - EU farmers)…!
168. You think so?
This is so clearly HPN2 - that is Hung Parliament Narrative Number 2. You don’t even need a bloodhound to follow the trail.
HPN1 has faded, so they launch HPN2.
171. Stuart - yes, you do have to log off. I notice you haven’t made your customary comment on the Scottish Lib Dem subsample - I wonder why that is?
FORMULA 1:
British Grand Prix’s future secured at Silverstone in 17-year deal
On OGH’s comment about the article, he’s clearly right. The truth of the piece is that Labour are muddying the waters regarding expectations. The Conservatives do not need to beat Labour in areas like Hazel Blears’ seat, or in inner city Liverpool. What they need to do is ensure, in very mixed seats like, oooh, picking two at random, Crewe & Nantwich and Norwich North, that they are sufficiently competitive with lower middle class and aspirational working class voters that any lead they establish among professionals and other middle class voters is sufficient to win.
It’s akin to the “no councillors in Newcastle etc” meme - a distortion.
#196, by Oracle December 7th, 2009 at 10:41 am
FORMULA 1:
British Grand Prix’s future secured at Silverstone in 17-year deal
Does anyone know the life-expectancy of Fuhrer Ecclestone? Great days indeed: 2027, here we come!
195: SNP….not doing great there are they?
198 - Timbot probably knows, he is some sort of self-proclaimed mystic, when it comes to rich people and their relative’s life expectancy.
Tony Blair made an estimated £75 per second for a speech in the former Soviet republic of Azerbaijan.
The former prime minister is thought to have been paid around £90,000 for his 1,000-word speech endorsing a new power plant, which is likely to have taken no more than 20 minutes to deliver.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1233751/75-second-As-Blair-rakes-90-000-20-minute-speech-MP-asks-Why-For-Sale-sign-round-neck.html#ixzz0YzzuiHQp
165… The paperless office is about as likely as the paperless toilet
199 Only requires a 2% swingback to be fourth in Scotland….
197. The one intriguing part of the article is the talking up of the Lib Dems.
We are told the Tories are withdrawing resources from ‘landslide’ seats but the example we get is not Birmingham Erdington or Blackburn but…Cheadle.
It could just be journalistic cr*p but I doubt it - perhaps it is Labour who are actuall withdrawing resources from Cheadle and other Tory/Lib Dem fights in the hope that this might just rob the Tories of a majority.
201 Leaving Tony plenty of time to wander around the old city in Baku…a most pleasant stroll.
193. “XEROX PARC made the statement.”
Let’s review. The “paperless office” that resulted in an explosion of printed matter was promulgated by the company that;
- invented the laser printer
- were at the time the largest manufacturer of photocopiers in the World
Funny that…
201 Worth every penny.
Stereotypical views on Westerners : *He must be British*
When in Thailand, I don’t hang out much with neither actual whores nor foreign expats, let alone tourists
But this after-noon, I sat with a bunch of hookers that were playing a game where they would guess the nationality of any foreigner passing by. They had some funny stereotypical views on foreigners.
Anyone with a ladyboy was automatically assumed to be… Italian. They said that Italians are the main customers of ladyboys. One barwhore even said she used to hang out with ladyboys and pretend to be a post-operation transvestite–as she wanted a good-looking, dark-haired Italian boyfriend.
Apparently every American will invariably have the *Stars and Stripes* somewhere on his clothing, or the word “USA”, and, usually, white socks and/or a baseball cap.
Apparently Germans and Australians look like fat British guys, and anyone overly drunk, aggressive, or loud is… British.
Does it sounds accurate?
Class war, a view from the trenches
Those of us unable to get out of London were forced to follow the conflict with the help of the BBC’s unrivalled team of class war correspondents, who managed to track the Tory leader down to a camp on the edge of Kabul.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/politics/6744087/Class-war-escalates-as-David-Cameron-sees-action-in-Afghanistan.html
On topic, the “Others” are “Others” because they think that Labour has been sh1te and is not worth their vote for a fourth term. I can see little or nothing changing by May to alter that and cause hordes of third party voters to come storming back to Gordon…
I can see some of these “Others” being won over by Cameron in the general election campaign, however…
204. If Labour were to do the same in, say, St Albans, the prospect of Lib Dem gains from the Tories would increase considerably.
201. I wonder how much tax Blair will be paying on that?
Will he perhaps be caught under the proposed ‘bonus windfall levy’ which will affect people who receive an abnormally large amount fo their annual pay in one month?
209. …cont. Meanwhile, in the war room at Downing Street
http://tinyurl.com/y8whazc
201 - Coming to a Tesco’s near you.
211. I’m sure we will indeed see a lot of that sort of thing. If they can’t win under their own colours, they will try their best to win under someone else’s.
In my experience most UKIP supporters are likely to stay with UKIP now. The days when they’d vote Conservative at ‘real’ elections and UKIP at ’small’ elections are over.
The question for me is how many Conservatives who have threatened a vote for UKIP this time will lose their nerve in the face of a hung parliament or win for Labour. I expect it all depends on how annoyed they feel come voting day - which in turn depends on events from now until then.
#206, by Scott P December 7th, 2009 at 10:55 am
Do you enjoy perusing an Adobe document, or do you prefer the printed article. Guess who owns the copyright on most fonts…!
[P.S.: It's correct name at the time was Rank-XEROX. So much for our manufaturing industries....
]
#207, by Jonathan December 7th, 2009 at 10:56 am
201 Worth every penny.
And funded by a
Scottishtaxpayer-owned bank! :tw@t:On the main point of this thread: will the polls narrow or widen as we get closer to the GE?
Why not make a book on:
A. They narrow and at what percentage
B. They widen and at what %
i,e. if the polls narrow by 2% towards labour the odds could be 2/3
similarly if they widen in the tories favour by 2% the odds could be evens.
I am no bookmaker, but someone (perhaps Mike?) could devise a system where this could generate some excitement and interest to those lurkers and infrequent visitors to this site.
The more hits PB gets the more advertising it will attract. The run up to the GE will be a ball.
216: I don’t agree. In places where it actually matters, most people won’t vote UKIP and risk labour getting in.
216 - “Do you want 5 More Years of Gordo / Labour?” seems like it could be a very powerful slogan from the polling evidence.
217. Adobe, founded by ex-PARC employees to exploit yet more technology developed there.
“Online retailers have forecast record sales as they prepare for the busiest internet shopping day of the year.”
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/8398536.stm
Why do I have a feeling that come Jan / Feb there are going to be a lot of people with terrible spending induced hangovers?
The smartest aspect of Nigel Farage standing against John Bercow is that it gives the UKIP campaign a focus. Without a signature campaign of that sort, there would be nothing for the media to latch onto in a general election campaign, and UKIP would get lost in the air war. With that signature campaign, UKIP can be guaranteed to get a fair amount of coverage. This in turn should raise its vote, in safe Conservative seats at least.
“Others” will, however, be squeezed hard in the marginals. The “Tories on holiday” UKIP voters will pack up their buckets and spades and many disaffected Green voters will find their 2005 clothespegs and vote for Labour. Only the defiantly untactical will stick with their minority choice. This in turn will disadvantage Labour, since right-leaning voters are much more motivated than the left-leaning voters this time round.
Finally, I find that statistic that 30% of Lib Dem voters last time did so tactically very interesting. I draw a different conclusion from our host about this. In 2005, the electorate was still profoundly anti-Tory. This time round, the mood has shifted. Many of that 30% will no longer be so motivated to oust the Tories. The Lib Dems may pick up a different batch of tactical voters, but who they are and who they are voting against is yet to be established.
Any interesting betting in the coming weeks?
I’d like to bet on something political.
On Intrade, I have actually a lil more than $2000 at about evens on the RCP Average of Obama’s Approvals being lower than 50% before 2010.
http://www.realclearpolitics.com/epolls/other/president_obama_job_approval-1044.html
That’s fun. It might allow me to neutralise my loss on November the 4th. The last by-election won by Labour helped in that regard…
Yet I’m looking for more action…
I think M<ike is right about the ‘Others’. It’s clear to most MPs that the arrival of a Green candidate is bad news for Labour (and worse news for the LibDems as the Green target voter pool is almost a subset of theirs) and a UKIP or BNP candidate is bad news for the Tories. We tend to discuss it in terms of where the voter has come from, but a BNP voter in particular, although quite possibly ex-Labour, is now usually strongly anti-Labour (that said, in the absence of a BNP candidate, lots won’t vote at all).
The position of LibDems is less clear and I’m pretty sure it varies by area. Most ‘issue’ polls do show LibDem and Labour voters close together on a wide range of issues, and quite different from Tory voters. However, in some areas LibDems like parts of the North have been the default anti-Labour party, and attract people who loathe Labour with a passion. In others they are to the left of Labour and think the Tories are the spawn of Satan. In some places they’re in coalition with one of the others, which has to change the dynamics - in my patch, the Tories ceaselessly attack “your LibDem-Labour council” and suggest that the two parties are much the same, which doesn’t endear them to LibDem activists or (anecdotally at least) voters. But as LibDems stand everywhere, the scope for gaining tactical votes either way is anyway smaller than with ‘Others’.
A final factor is that the whole thing is affected by overall opinion. If Labour’s standing improves generally to the point that a hung Parliament is probable, then I’d expect us to get more LibDem/Other votes than if we’re miles behind simply because those voters too will on average have an improved view of us. The LibDem second preference has shifted from 2-1 to Labour to an evenish split in step with a decline in Labour’s overall rating.
Off topic, I’d like to say a big thank you to the British public, whose good sense in voting out Danyl from the X Factor last night has significantly enriched me.
226 — So what will you do with the extra money?
22
I advise anyone buying gifts from Amazon not to take up the offer of “Gift wrapping”. On mine they used dirty cellotape and creased paper which was torn when shoved into the outer packaging.
227 - Since Mr Palmer’s party seem determined to eliminate all tax breaks on any form of saving that I might wish to make, I shall have to squander it. All suggestions gratefully received.
225:and a UKIP or BNP candidate is bad news for the Tories
Excuse me? The BNP is nigh on a subset of the Labour party I think you’ll find a lot more.
29
Take up political betting ?
223. Interesting - and very plausible - final ppgh there Antifrank.
229 antifrank - Have you given up on the idea you had a while back of squandering it on a politically-incorrect, Copenhagen-defying sports car?
I did not know that pigs were so f*ckin’ awesome:
http://www.pleix.net/plaiditsu.html
228 - my own experience with Amazon is such that anything required for Xmas is ordered in November or sourced elsewhere. 2 years running I’ve been let down with December deliveries. But thanks for the tip on gift wrapping as this is something I have thought of using but never quite got around to it.
204 - I agree that this is an interesting aspect of the article. The marginals poll showing the Tories looking quite good against the Lib Dems in the SW but surprisingly poor elsewhere may be a factor.
Cheadle is in theory 14th-16th (depending on how you treat Solihull and Somerton & Frome) on the Tories’ Lib Dem held target list. Above it in the list, Eastleigh and Westmorland look particularly tricky and the rest split quite evenly between almost nailed on gain and nail-biter in my view. Interesting for the spreads if the Tories are focussing on only about a dozen Lib Dem seats (although no doubt candidates lower on the list will still be working hard albeit with less CCO support than they’d have liked).
This is my FINAL FORCAST of 2009 regarding the outcome of the GE.
Conservatives to win, with a 27/33 seat majority
Richard,
Any interesting betting in the next week or so?
227 NPMP erm i beg to differ, the BNP are making hay from disenchanted WWC voters who in the main come from Labour. BJFBW anyone ?
237 I am currently in a similar position - but I’ll wait until we see how the PBR is received before going final!
225. A complicating factor for UKIPPERS is Douglas Carswell, Conservative MP for Harwich, who is bringing a Private Members Bill for an IN/OUT Referendum.
Should UKIPPERS stand in Constituencies against MP’s voting in favour of Carswell’s Bill? UKIP hope is forlorn hope. Carswell’s is real.
Will UKIP Pass The Carswell Test?.
[230] - The BNP is nigh on a subset of the Labour party I think you’ll find a lot more.
Is that tenable in the light of the results that Mike publishes above? BNP voters split 59:17 in the Tories favour. More than 3:1.
Not that I think it matters too much - I prefer to damn the Tories by their own actions - but it is one of the more pathetic games on here to try to categorise the BNP as “left-wing”.
217 - Rank was a manufacturing industry was it? Please broaden my knowledge of the world on this, because when I was a teenager in the 70s, I remember that they operated cinemas and owned Butlin’s.
There’s nothing wrong with this type of business, but why is it manufacturing? I thought this was service industry.
230 - “The BNP is nigh on a subset of the Labour party I think you’ll find a lot more”
That’s not what the YouGov poll cited by Mike says. The split is 59/17 to the Tories.
240 — In due time, I’m planning to bet virtually all my net worth on a Conservative Majority… A friend of mine opened an account on betfair, so no f*cking *premium charge*…
233 - The other half is in negotiations. To date, the deal has been that I’m allowed a sports car if he is allowed to run a bed and breakfast. The horror. He may be softening.
One complication is that my upstairs neighbour has a Maserati and my cousin has a Porsche, so if I do get a sports car, it will have to be something indisputably classier than both of those.
236. I would suggest that this item may be a garbled message about Labour’s almost total retreat from middle class areas at the upcoming GE. I think they may be going to concentrate on holding a core of around 200 seats in traditional areas while giving up entirely on the rest.
The hope presumably is that the Lib Dems will ‘come through for them’ in some of these middle class seats. But of course even if the Lib Dems do hold half a dozen extra seats that’s unlikely to make much difference to the result, if Labour are running an extreme core vote strategy. And long-term this approach risks ending Labour’s chances of winning an election outright…
238 Philippe - I don’t think there is much coming up for immediate settlement, other than novelty bets on the Irish (and I would expect UK) budgets.
But the position of the Irish government is looking quite precarious, and there could be opportunities there [note to Mike - worth a special thread?].
The problem is finding liquid markets. I just tried to bet with Paddy Power on a 2010 Irish election, but they accepted only a derisory stake.
242 Timothy (likes zebras)
You may be mistaking origin for destination.
Why is it David Cameron has now said Lord Ashcroft’s tax affairs are “nothing todo with me”?:
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/ashcrofts-taxes-nothing-to-do-with-me-says-cameron-1835503.html
When in February 2008 he backed he Bill to ban foreign-based peers from sitting in the Lords put forward by Liberal Democrat Lord Oakeshott.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-513296/Cameron-backs-threat-strip-Ashcroft-peerage-row-UK-taxes.html#ixzz0Z08DjRQc
In particular the Conservative Leader of thr House of Lords said this:
“Michael Ashcroft gave several assurances regarding his tax status, when he accepted his peerage.
If legislation is brought forward to ensure that UK legislators [MPs and peers] pay taxes in this country, then my party will support it.
And if it becomes law then everyone, including Lord Ashcroft, will have to comply with it and declare whether they are a UK taxpayer.
If he is not a UK taxpayer, then he, and every other peer in that position, would have to give up their seats in the Lords.”
So what has made David Cameron change his mind about Lord Ashcroft’s position?
246 antifrank - ..if he is allowed to run a bed and breakfast..
Sounds like a deal-breaker to me.
243. As pointed out above, Rank had a major stake in Xerox. In the UK they owned a lot of the companies that manufactured the kit used in cinemas and theatres
Rank Audio Visual was created in 1960, bringing together Rank’s acquisitions in multimedia, including Bell and Howell (acquired with Gaumont British in 1941), Andrew Smith Harkness Ltd (1952) and Wharfedale Ltd (1958). Subsequent acquisitions included Strand Electric Holdings (1968) and H.J. Leak & Co. (1969).
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rank_Organisation
198, glorious victory!
247 - If Lab are relying on a Nick Clegg led Lib Dems to do the business for them, they really are living in la la land! He is no Charles Kennedy, more a Blair super-lite (except more gaffe prone).
251 - I have absolutely no clue where he gets such a demented idea from. He’s moving onto the idea of property development at present, for which a) he has a lot of relevant practical experience and b) I don’t need to learn how to tuck hospital corners. I may yet be whizzing around in a metallic embodiment of a midlife crisis soon.
243 - Rank was a big old beast at one time and did quite a lot of manufacture including of the projection equipment at cinemas, cameras, lenses etc.
Rank-Xerox was more of a licensing deal - it was a Xerox Corp product but Rank did manufacture and sales outside North America.
@antifrank “All suggestions gratefully received.”
With your large winnings, I might suggest indeed buying skirts and shoes and nylon stockings to beautiful young women, and invite them to try it at your place.
Invest in some real good weed–then watch some great TV shows. A simple yet powerful pleasure.
Buy a motorbike, get drunk, and ride. It’s real fun.
244: It’s more a preferable figure though. They may prefer a Tory government yet still be ex-labour supporters and picking up more votes from labour from the 2005 figure.
But as NickP said, it’s more in terms of where they come from.
239 - But according to the YouGov poll, many more BNP voters would prefer a Tory government to a Labour one.
Thanks Dick, errr, Rich.
259: they might prefer it, but would they vote for it?
Higher VAT is an unacceptable tax on the poor
“VAT costs the poorest twice as much - as a portion of their income - as the rich”
http://conservativehome.blogs.com/centreright/2009/12/the-parties-responses-to-the-fiscal-crisis.html
Looks like Cameron will hear a lot of squealing of all sides if he does win and gets Squeaky to stick the VAT up.
242
Consider the Protestant/Catholic schisms.
That one group displays such antipathy to the other, who they would each regard as heretics, is not really surprising.
259 SO
Hell hath no fury like a lover scorned??
259 SO - they were asked -
If you had to choose, which would you prefer to see after the next election, a Conservative government led by David Cameron or a Labour government led by Gordon Brown ?
The fact they chose Conservative over Labor does not prove they were previous Con voters.
Oh, Antifrank.
If you’re in your fifties, then, ABOVE ALL, I would suggest you get married to some money-grabbing teenage junkie slut. It will keep you young.
264 - a much better explanation.
Course I could be wrong, they might well be the toff branch of the BNP.
This Gordo £12bn efficiency saving packages is getting smaller by the second,
“Brown outlined anticipated savings of £1.3bn from streamlining central government, a reduction in central targets and priorities to allow councils to decide how to spend their money”
http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2009/dec/07/brown-outlines-additional-3bn-savings
I can’t see in the article where the other billions come directly from via “efficiency savings”.
268 Oracle - reduction in central targets and priorities to allow councils to decide how to spend their money
Another Conservative policy, previously ridiculed by Labour.
82 - Mike do we have comparable figures for 1997? If not, how do we compare the two elections?
The figures show that tactical voting did happen in 2005, but I’d argue this was on a much smaller scale than in 1997 so tactical unwind has already happened to a significant degree. The evidence seems to suggest (per yougov marginals poll) that there is no significant level of tactical voting for or against Labour. If this holds then it suggests the Conservatives will outperform UNS but not by a huge amount. Also, this could be counterbalanced by poor performance against the LDs in the marginals (again indicated in the yougov marginals poll).
This could all change as the campaign develops. However, the big yougov marginals poll implies that seats will track the UNS predictors quite closely - despite quite different regional results.
Re the BNP split, here in South Yorkshire, where they are doing particularly well, they certainly don’t seem to be ex Conservatives.
My feeling is that the majority of them are ex Labour, and they couldn’t being themselves to vote Conservative for a variety of reasons. They are very anti-Labour and I can imagine many of them saying that they would at present prefer Cameron to Brown (as long as they don’t have to vote for him themselves).
266 - I’m in my 40s. I’m planning a civil partnership next year (which is, incidentally, quite a good way to get through money). I’m off alcohol on medical grounds for a few months and I’m pretty sure my doctor would have similar comments about weed.
But your suggestions are certainly imaginative!
57 I went to an independent school too, which I suppose would be a minor one although then and now always in the top 20 or 25 academically.
What I particularly recall was that the orthodox attitudes you were supposed to display were set by an aggressive coterie, who were simply desperate to appear street cred and down with the kids. They faced the awesome disadvantage of attending a very expensive public school.
So the pinnacle of musical taste would be The Clash rather than Abba. You had to affect scorn for values like patriotism in particular. You dressed as scruffily as the rules allowed. You called prep “homework”, and you called people “blokes” rather than “chaps”, otherwise you would be subjected to a barrage of toff noises.
Yes, really: £13,000 a year in today’s money, and the desperate-to-be-cred thought other people were the real toffs, like prison inmates always think someone else is more depraved than they are.
Anyone who departed from these norms could expect to be savagely verbally abused. If you admitted to liking the wrong sort of music, you were “a f*cking poof”. If you wore the wrong clothes, you were “a f*cking poof”.
These attitudes were actually dictated by a very small coterie. But if 4 people in a group of 24 start quacking “you f*cking poof!” at someone who’s just admitted to, say, collecting Britains toy soldiers, 6 or 8 suggestible others will probably join in. It will feel like a consensus.
Within this coterie, you could also find individuals who took it all further, and affected leftism. Looking back, it seems clear that this was just an extension of the same facile adolescent self-assertion into a new area. Public school lefties are simply middle-class twits who have never grown up, but have tasted inflicting the tyranny I have described, and enjoyed it.
They are also convinced that others are toffs and they themselves aren’t. They may have been to the same school, but they are sure that they personally survived without becoming a toff.
The school sounds like hell, but in fact, after a term or so, you tuned it all out and acquired a set of mates among whom you could speak and act freely.
268 O.
It’s still a solid £ 12 bn according to the state broadcaster…
254 Science has been shocked to its core to discover an element lighter than hydrogen. Provisionally called “Cleggium”, it consists of a neutron… and not much more. The only other property of Cleggium is that it appears to be easily attracted to Labourium - and repelled by Torium… However labourium cleggite is an inherently unstable compound.
“We have discovered that Cleggium has a short half-life - although longer than Mingium…” said some scientist with a beard. Bored with throwing lithium in water, the scientist then went off to “have a laugh” at watching the “crazy results” of dropping a lump of Kennedyium into alcohol…
The Chancellor is expected to argue that, because billions of pounds of public cash was used to bail out the financial sector, taxpayers have a right to a larger share of bankers’ payouts.
–
John Whiting, tax partner with PricewaterhouseCoopers, said that it was unprecedented for a particular occupation to be targeted in this way. “This is difficult on several levels,” he said. “It smacks of discrimination.”
Accountants expressed doubts over the practicality of such a tax, claiming that it could breach human rights.
Darling might have a fight on his hands.
Thank goodness the British Grand Prix has survived Bernies multiple attempts to get rid of it.
*POLL WATCH*
I think we might get the Populus/Times poll tonight. Populus has tended to show consistently smaller Conservative leads on average, than any other pollster (though they have never had the Tories under 10%) so this might be a good night for our Labour supporters.
You should also bear in mind RE the figures above that as an internet based polling company yougov probably only has access to people with internet facilities, which may well pick people with different views to the general BNP voter.
275
273. In fairness, The Clash are indisputably better than ABBA.
274 - They obviously can’t quite even agree with their own website then,
“£3bn more than planned (already) in the Budget (over 4 years).”
268 None of Brown’s announcements are new as such - the Budget included the asset sales and additional savings from efficiencies (above those already claimed by Brown). All he is doing is outlining how he sees some of that being achieved, but figures being presented are lower than in the Budget forecasts.
UK will be borrowing at least another £700bn by end of 2014 with all these savings & sales already accounted for, but we have yet to hear about the cuts that are also included.
….and those forecasts were based on smaller decline in GDP and smaller annual deficit this year.
277 - As said last night on here, how the hell is he going to be able to single out one just profession, or as it seems a subset of one profession, for an extra bonus tax?
Not only is it discrimination, there are so many ways round it, the obvious being that the traders aren’t employed directly, rather they form their own consultancy and the banks pay the consultancy or something similar.
If it is a bonus tax across the board, well then all sorts of people get caught, not just bankers, and then the argument about tax on bankers because of x or y falls down.
Gotta go.
Good luck, Antifrank, with your female soon-to-be “partner”.
I hope for your sake that she’s half your age and a third of your weight, super-hot, fully bisexual, infertile, and that she craves p*ssy as much as we red-blooded male do.
265 - It just looks like most BNP voters prefer the Tories to Labour, at least according to that poll.
280
I dispute that.
266 - I know that. It just shows they prefer the Tories to Labour.
284 - on Sky they mentioned a special tax code for bankers.
285 - Male, two years older than me and complaining that he looks fat in the current version of the photo for the front of the invitation.
237.by weathercock December 7th, 2009 at 11:23 am
“This is my FINAL FORCAST of 2009 regarding the outcome of the GE.
Conservatives to win, with a 27/33 seat majority”
I will give my prediction this time next week, after we have had the “Epically Disastrous PBR” and polls that follow !
EXPECT A VERY VERY BAD SET OF POLLS, GURNING AND BAD HEADLINES,ALL PROVIDING A DISASTROUS CHRISTMAS PRESENT FOR THE KIT KAT KID! Lol
290 - antifrank, you could pay for some air-brushing as a wee suprise?
286 Just a function of how Labour has poisoned the well with the WWC - those folks ain’t NEVER going back to Labour…
272 - My guess is that most BNP voters are pretty new to the voting game. They like the Tories better than Labour, but won’t vote Tory because the Tory party is not racist.
293 - Although the vast majority of WWC people do not vote BNP.
282.
If you can access the website you’ve got a computer and you know how to use it (ah Fuzzbox…) which puts you into the dangerous, thinking classes.
They take the truth and batter it into submission anyway.
294. “but won’t vote Tory because the Tory party is not racist.” [citation needed]
James Macintyre, 2009.
281. I’m not so sure. Who, these days, gets out their Clash, or Jam, or Stranglers records, and gives them a spin to hear those catchy old tunes again? When did you last catch yourself humming a Sham 69 tune? Is it even possible? Who is more widely listened to 30 years on?
Abba, I suspect.
It’s hard to say which decades were good or bad musically because all of them have produced mostly excruciating dross. However, some decades have produced relatively more stuff that still finds new fans today. I suspect on that basis that the 60s were better than the 70s, and the 70s better than the 80s.
After that I don’t know, because there are acts from the 90s I didn’t notice first time round that are now on their second or third comeback.
Music is like fossil fuels. There’s a limited supply of original material and what there is is controlled by unsavoury characters like Simon Cowell.
286 SO
Rebound relationship?
While I think that more BNP supporters are exLab than exCon, I don’t think having an arguement about it advances the fight against BNP racism. It is useful for seeing Labour’s smug moral superiority burst though.
292 - The airbrushing is in train as we speak. The next problem is what to wear.
288 - sorry SO, I think I meant to reply to the Timothy .. zebras.
289 - Other than I’m sure it will be “see you in court”, be interesting how they define a “banker”.
Will somebody who does the IT, HR, admin etc in a bank class come under this code? I know some people in Bank IT, who earn bucket loads of money and have had extremely large bonuses in the past.
re 271. I cannot see how you can argue that the latest YouGov marginals poll, taken at precisely the same time and with mostly the same questions as a standard poll, does not show that things are different in the marginals.
On 2005 the entire final week of the Labour campaign was designed to warn against the dangers of the Tories and encourage turnout of their own supporters AND tactical voting.
I agree that this was not on the scale of 2001 which saw the biggest tactical moves.
Maybe we’re going to see the Golgafrincham tax.
290 — This is kinda gay! Real gay actually. Oooooopppppppssssssss…
Some things in life I’ll never be able to understand…
Good luck anyway!
Old gay.
299 - Frankly, I would have thought that as BNP voters are by definition racists, it’s actually quite good that they have somewhere to go and vote. If they did not, the risk would be they would enter mainstream party politics and so contaminate one of the parties capable of winning an election, or at leas influencing its outcome.
Ian Dale blogs, well it’s all in the title..
http://iaindale.blogspot.com/2009/12/browns-up-tp-his-old-tricks-again.html
302 - IT is probably an unfair term to use, rather they are involved in things like the development of modelling tools for traders.
298. I tend to ignore the actual era business, in terms of judging bands on their merits. Also, judging it on general popularity or records sold is like ranking movies by how many people went to see them. It still doesn’t mean Titanic is a better film that Withnail & I.
The Clash and the Jam produced some of the most incendiary records ever committed to vinyl. White Man in Hammersmith Palais and Going Underground, White Riot and A Town Called Malice. These will stand the test of time as masterpieces.
ABBA are for menopausal suburban divorcees on hen nights, sobbing into an oversized glass of Pino Grigio.
Special tax code for bankers. Is that possible without it being discriminatory? I guess its like MPs having a special tax return form, a specific department of the Inland Revenue and what looks like an exemption from the requirement for expenses to be wholly and exclusively for work.
The updated Virgin Galactic spaceship thingy is being unveiled today:
http://www.space.com/businesstechnology/091204-virgingalactic-spaceliner-ready.html
274 What school was that John R as it sounds very familiar to my experince in the 1990’s at Clegg’s Alma Mater (which is still more expensive and always in the top one or two in the country). Despite the school’s academic reputation it was socially very important not to be seen to make too much of an effort.
I think its a characteristic of London Private Schools however expensive they may be which is at odds with the popular image of private schools and very different from the those at country boarding schools.
309 - The bleak Scandinavianess of The Winner Takes it All and the Day Before You Came cannot be underestimated. Spend any time in Stockholm in winter and Abba make a whole lot more sense!
“Tell me does she kiss, the way I used to kiss you?” That is heart-breaking.
310 - I bet if that arrangement for MP’s made them financially worse off though, they wouldn’t be sitting on their hands about. They would be straight round the courts claiming Human Rights and discrimination.
310 - I think that was the point of the Times article. And it would rely on the banks to provide a list of those ‘bankers’ to enable them to apply the special tax code, well it’s not going to work, is it?
Marquee Mark @ 276
Cleggium is known to form at least 30 different chemical combinations.
Whilst it appears to be non radioactive, Professor Martin Day claims it to have a very short half life, and believes it to be an isotope of Kinnockium, another lightweight lack of substance, with no known uses.
BBC HYS asking,
“What should the government cut?”
My first thought…Gordo
Further to my post at 251 the Spectator is also questioning David Cameron’s attitude to Lord Ashcroft’s tax status:
http://www.spectator.co.uk/coffeehouse/5608673/cameron-and-ashcroft-should-come-clean.thtml
306 SO
Sorry for the pretentiousness but I think that Democracy at its best is the engagement of all sections of society to govern better and improve life. Ignoring or surpressing certain groups of voters leads to trouble in the long run.
I love this comment from the Ian dale article I posted..
“At December 07, 2009 11:49 AM , Blogger Stepney said…
“Reading out the figures in a shrill, rapid voice, he proved to them in detail that they had more oats, more hay, more turnips than they had had in Jones’s day, that they worked shorter hours, that their drinking water was of better quality, that they lived longer, that a larger proportion of their young ones survived infancy, and that they had more straw in their stalls and suffered less from fleas.”
- George Orwell, Animal Farm, Ch. 9
303 - But Mike that was a poll of ‘northern marginals’ i.e. one part of the country vs. the huge yougov marginals poll conducted in the summer.
It may be the Conservatives are doing better in one region than another, but what matters is the national performance. The national yougov poll showed the Conservatives winning almost exactly the same number of seats as the Wells UNS predictor showed.
My argument is that the Conservatives will likely outperform UNS, but not by a dramatic amount. If they are 7 points clear they will likely get an overall majority. However 6 points will probably be a Hung Parliament with a minority Conservative government.
321 - Just to add - all of this is irrelevant as it stands. With a 10 point lead the Conservatives will definitely win an overall majority. The interest comes if the lead narrows a bit further.
318 - The whole Ashcroft thing is very weird.
You would think that all the digging that has been done, if Ashcroft was “playing the system” it would have come out by now, would only take one “naughty” person at the tax office for instance. However, if he is as Hague said “meeting all the criteria required”, why not just finish the matter once and for all.
It is either that Ashcroft arrangements are so horribly complex, nobody can say prove (other than himself) that he is somehow doing something that the media could spin as negative, OR the Tories are enjoying leading the Guardian and the Indy on a merry dance, so many articles so little proof of anything, so far just a few pi$$ed off Belizean’s (if that the right word?) to show for all the shouting from the sidelines.
Southam Observer @ 313
Glad we can agree on something
I like Abba, even though I never listened to them first time round.
In the interests of cross party agreement, let it also be noted that I think The Clash rule.
Goupillon. I would be very interested in knowing Tony Blair’s tax arrangements. I assume we are paying him a nice pension and proving 24hour security. It would be a shame if he was somehow not paying all the tax he should be.
However since tax affairs are a private matter, I don’t think my wish will be answered anytime soon. With Ashcroft, I assume since the relevant authorities have not said anything there is probably no illegality going on.
Perhaps you should also focus on Abraham’s dodgy donations, Ecclestones dodgy donations, the Mittal’s dodgy donations….
With his charity giving, especially Crimewatch, Ashcroft will have done more for the UK than many of Labour’s suppporters.
325 - Lord Sainsbury’s arrangements could be interesting too. However, again he genuinely seems to give a lot of cash to some very worthy causes (unfortunately quite a bit to the current Labour party as well) hard to get particular exercised about him.
319 - They are not being ignored, but how can the mainstream parties introduce policies that pander to racists without becoming racist themselves? Sometimes voters have to be prepared to do a bit of thinking for themselves and not just latch onto easy messages that are either based on lies or founded on nonsense.
re 321. “My argument is that the Conservatives will likely outperform UNS, but not by a dramatic amount. If they are 7 points clear they will likely get an overall majority. However 6 points will probably be a Hung Parliament with a minority Conservative government.”
I agree with that broad conclusion - but the election is local and regional and there will be different patterns in different sorts of seat.
It looks as though it’s going to be hard for the Tories to win more than about 10 LD seats that are projected on the UNS swings. They are also going to find it harder in Scotland.
This will be more than balanced by the outcomes in the LAB>CON marginals in England and Wales.
If we want to have a look at tax dodgers, Lord Myners is the man you want to ask, he made a fortune out of advising people on it.
I do find it quite amusing that the Guardian get so exercised about one man’s tax returns and if he is a “tax dodger”, when they did a massive tax “efficiency” move a few years back. The hypocrisy of the week long series they ran on this issue was quite unbelievable.
312 Merchant Taylors Northwood.
324 - I as a huge fan of the Jam as well mind you and saw them six or seven times live. It is ironic that they are now coupled withthe Clash when as far as I am aware Eton Rifles was written at least partially about Joe Strummer, the posh boy who wanted to to be seen as working class.
Thought you were clever when you lit the fuse,
Tore down the House of Commons in your brand new shoes,
Compose a revolutionary symphony,
Then went to bed with a charming young thing.
127. Dr Spyn:
I revisited the station this morning, fearing the rain more than the staff, but paradoxically, cloudier conditions produced better light than on Friday’s sunny conditions - since the platforms are in a deep cutting there was plenty of shadow on Friday. Oh, sorry to sound so nerdy LOL!
As for the staff, they either didn’t notice or didn’t bother me this time around! I even managed to snap a Eurostar hurtling through the station at 100 mph-plus or something!
Entrance (Friday), a bit bare, still to be 100% completed:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Stratford_International_stn_entrance.JPG
Concourse (Friday), barer still!:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Stratford_International_stn_concourse.JPG
Platforms (Friday), westbound looking east:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Stratford_International_stn_platform_2_look_east.JPG
Platforms (Friday) eastbound looking west:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Stratford_International_stn_platform_3_look_west.JPG
Newer pictures to be uploaded when I get home!
321 Kieran, I think it may have been a poll of northern marginals simply because there are no Midlands or southern marginals left?
332 - Did you see the article on the BBC about some Japanese hotels very close to train stations that are doing a roaring business by advertising some rooms as ideal for train spotters?
Why the sudden nervousness from Cameron?
Ashcroft, the schools and websites and now theres a story that the press have been banned from his speech to Gingerbread tomorrow.
275
BBC falls in line with Guardian £ 3 bn efficiency savings
“The efficiency savings are £ 3 bn , were £3 bn, have always been £ 3 bn…”
325. Jonathan - I am focussing on Lord Ashcroft because of the “assurances” we are told he made when he was made a member of the House of Lords. The others you mention are not members of The House of Lords.
Mittal was nominated by Tony Blair but this got rejected for very good reasons:
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/donor-mittal-being-considered-for-blairs-resignation-honours-list-433067.html
Seems the morning Bunker briefing has finally finished. Long one this morning by the looks of it.
World Cup Betting post? From me?
Well there’s a JenningsBet next to the bus stop on the way into work. Saw the following odds posted in their window:
4 Spain
5 Brazil
11/2 England
8 Argentina
12 France
12 Holland
12 Italy
14 Germany
25 Ivory Coast
25 Portugal
40 Chille (sic.)
66 USA
SO “Sometimes voters have to be prepared to do a bit of thinking for themselves and not just latch onto easy messages”
You’re sounding positively ‘get on your bike’ ish there.
I don’t think racist policies need to be introduced but policies that address some of the real problems in certain communities are needed. Why has the vote for the BNP increased over the last decade? People can’t have suddenly got more racist.
I suppose that under a socialist ideology that says we will look after you, when a party fails to do that people go looking for another one that will look after them. As you said, voters need to do a little thinking rather than latch onto easy messages.
331 Meanwhile, Paul Weller sends his kids to private schools, and uses his money to rent himself some splendid rural insulation well from all those lowlifes and inner city characters he wants the rest of us to get along with better.
337 Goupillon - There doesn’t seem to be any story here. Lord Ashcroft made assurances, and no doubt he has kept them. Are you suggesting that you have information that that is not the case?
328. “My argument is that the Conservatives will likely outperform UNS, but not by a dramatic amount. If they are 7 points clear they will likely get an overall majority. However 6 points will probably be a Hung Parliament with a minority Conservative government.”
I think you are plucking figures out of the air. You do realise that your “not by a dramatic amount” in fact implies a larger deviation from UNS than Labour obtain in 1997 due to tactical voting and targetting?
334. Um, no I didn’t - that’s almost a coincidence because the Southeastern Railway Class 395 “Javelin” units in use between Kent and St Pancras are built in Japan (Hitachi I think).
http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Unit_395007_at_Stratford_International.JPG
But I took this much nicer shot at Ebbsfleet back in September:
http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Unit_395008_at_Ebbsfleet_International.JPG
What a great quote from Cherie Blair,
“It’s nice to be comfortable but I’ll probably never stop worrying that I’ve got enough.”
http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/top-stories/2009/12/07/cherie-blair-i-still-worry-about-cash-115875-21878841/
Tony get out and open some more Middle Eastern supermarkets, I mean power stations…
340 notice the rather confused conflations going on in SO’s posts on this.
Nick Griffin likes cornflakes. Nick Griffin is a racist. Others like cornflakes. Therefore they are racists. Only racists can like cornflakes. Cornflakes do not really exist. Cornflakes do not cause racism. Cornflakes have no widespread support. Cornflakes are the fault of Weetabix. Why aren’t people eating those instead of racist cornflakes?
At some point Stuart Dickson will interject to say never mind the cornflakes, the real issue is porridge.
Labour needs to grasp that inaccurately insulting the people you’ve failed isn’t going to win their votes back. Every time they do it, they cement those votes to the BNP.
I thought Labour had sorted crime, by being tough on crime tough on the causes of crime. You can’t even pop off for a Christmas break these days without needing round the clock security it seems,
http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/top-stories/2009/12/06/steven-gerrard-gets-ferocious-guard-dog-to-protect-home-115875-21878657/
O/T Last night I asked another poster, who makes frequent offers of betting opportunities, if they would supply details of bets previously offered on pb.com, and subsequently settled at a loss to themselves. That person simply offered up an insult in response; I draw my own conclusions from their action.
Where would I find an up to date list of recorded wagers made through pb.com please? Would one of the Peters have it?
Cambridge open primary candidates
http://conservativehome.blogs.com/goldlist/2009/12/six-names-shortlisted-for-cambridge-open-primary.html
John R
To be fair, the Conservatives need to also be offering an appealing message to those tempted to vote for the BNP. There is plenty of insulting of the working/underclass that goes on.
343. Or to put it another way, the LibDems would have to collapse in the marginals by something like 6 percentage points, all going to the Tories…
346 You’ve clearly had too much riboflavin this morning John R.
332. Looks if buying shares in Cemex and Pilkington would have been great ideas. Doesn’t look like aesthetics are the strong point.
However, the brutalist architecture at Canary Wharf Underground station and other Jubilee Extensions wasn’t a great improvement on Holden’s Art Deco designs. Frank Pick would be turning in his grave.
One look at the Mirror headlines,
“David Cameron’s fear of being exposed as a fake”
“Scared David Cameron bans press from lone parents speech”
Then one look at recent TimBot post.
Hmmmmmmm…..
354, you think timmy Ponting might be a man whose nickname is lavatorial in nature?
342. Richard Nabavi - all of us have been led to believe Lord Ashcroft’s “assurances” implied a renouncement of his non dom status. It will continue to reflect badly on him and the Conservative Party if it is not confirmed he has done this.
Thank goodness somebody is finally on the case. Apparently, and I know this is hard to believe, but there is “a culture of excess” in the public services. It seems it stretches back years, with extravagant pay settlements, gold-plated pensions and inefficient working practices.
http://blogs.wsj.com/iainmartin/2009/12/07/brown-lambasts-culture-of-excess-in-public-sector-with-a-straight-face/?mod=rss_WSJBlog
From Iain Dale
I hear that an announcement is just about to be made that Bernard Gray (the MOD’s adviser on efficiency) has quit the Government to advise the Conservatives on public sector productivity. Martin Read, who is cited in Gordon Brown’s foreword to the ‘Smarter Gov’ paper has followed suit, as has Sir Peter Gershon. They’ll be advising Phillip Hammond - helping the Tories to squeeze out the endemic waste of the past decade.
http://iaindale.blogspot.com/2009/12/three-government-advisers-quit-to.html
327 - Southam Observer
Have you spoken to many BNP voters about their reasons?
Throw one fish and a school of obsessed porpoises flap.
Lets just remind ourselves the real “scaredy cat” politician who is so scared he barely leaves his bunker these days, and then only to give the odd set piece speech with limited questioning, to meet people who are die-hards in his own party or most frequently school children. A man seemingly so frightened he can’t even go out in public to vote at an election or make his mind for for a month if he wants a leaders debate or not.
for for -> for over…
Mike does another good analysis which sets this site above all others for mature debate and insight into the election rather than conjecture to construct a media story.
356 Goupillon - Why? The fact that you put the word assurances in quotation marks merely shows that you have a predisposition to think Lord Ashcroft is dishonest. Why should he pander to that? It is normal, in public affairs, to assume integrity unless there is evidence to the contrary.
After all, we were given ‘assurances’ that Lord Sainsbury’s affairs were held by a Blind Trust and that therefore there was no problem in his being involved in matters (such as GM food policy) where owning a big chunk of a huge supermarket might be seen as giving rise to a conflict of interest. Are you campaigning to see the Trust Deed?
353. Yes that’s true, it actually looks a lot like Ebbsfleet International, though that at least is complete now.
http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Category:Ebbsfleet_International_railway_station
Other new London stations that opened this year:
http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Imperial_Wharf_stn_western_entrance2.JPG
http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:South_Quay_new_DLR_stn_west_entrance.JPG
361 - Maybe I should have prefixed with leaves bunker in Britain. Obviously, he like the overseas jollies, and so do his hosts, as he always agrees to spend more of our money that we don’t have.
341 - Indeed.
366, stop being horrid to Gordon, you flat-earther saboteur!
364 - When did he take back control from the blind trust?
Lord Sainsbury, the former minister and Labour’s biggest financial backer, transferred £340 million worth of shares last night in a move that experts claim will save him more than £27 million in tax (01 Apr 2008)
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/2787307/Labour-donor-Lord-Sainsbury-avoids-27m-capital-gains-tax.html
369 - I assume as soon as he stopped being a minister.
341. I have two musician near neighbours, both ex punk movement who have moved with their families to an area of beautiful rural tranquility.
Both clearly did so to escape the reality of the urban areas they previously inhabited, though they are reluctant to admit this and still tend to express right-on views..halfheartedly…
366. He left the bunker at the weekend to visit injured soldiers who all welcomed him with open arms and bought him gifts to thank him for the wonderful equipment and helicopters he personally provided for them.
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/politics/article6945976.ece
More than half the soldiers being treated at the Selly Oak hospital ward in Birmingham either asked for the curtains to be closed or deliberately avoided the prime minister, according to several of those present.
The soldiers, who have sustained some of the worst injuries seen in Afghanistan, described his visit as “opportunistic” and a “waste of time”.
346 - If it looks racist, smells racist and acts racist, you can bet your bottom dollar that it is racist. I don’t think anyone votes BNP without knowing and understanding this. I am not sure that any mainstream party would want such people to vote for it.
369 Oracle - Presumably when he ceased to be a minister.
[As it happens, I think the whole Blind Trust thing was a nonsense; since it didn't address the central issue of Lord Sainsbury having a huge financial interest in a supermarket. Of course, it was possible in theory that the trustees might have sold all shares in the meantime, but not in practice].
371 To be fair they have to put up with you Runny as a neighbour. So they still have enough grim reality to put up with.
“The government’s first efficiency drive, initiated by Sir Peter Gershon’s review in 2004, aimed to find £21.5bn in savings by 2007. In the end, the government claims to have saved £26.5bn over that time (Gordon Brown repeated the claim this morning).
But, as I said on the Today programme this morning, the National Audit Office assessed the programme when it was part-way through, and found that only about a quarter - 26% - of the £13.3bn in savings then being claimed by departments were “fairly represent efficiencies made”.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/thereporters/stephanieflanders/2009/12/efficiency_trap.html
350. Indeed, but the working class and the underclass - in whom one can in reality include Scotland in general, plus a lot of the public sector - are two different cases.
There has been plenty of working class Tory support in the past. The underclass exists simply to ponce off the rest of us. No government that’s inclined to limit that stands a chance of gaining their support. Historically, the right has never really had anything to say to these people.
Many prominent socialists were eugenicists in the 1920s and 1930s. They recognised that socialism as proposed would enable the creation of a benefits-sucking underclass. Their preferred solution was to eliminate all that class’ likely members well ahead of implementation.
After 1945, suddenly there were no eugenicists and neither could you find anybody who’d admit they’d ever been one. So the left just went ahead and implemented socialism anyway. With what results, we see all around us.
It’s thus not altogether surprising, given that bit of historical context, that otherwise left-inclined WWC voters should support the BNP. The BNP are essentially arguing for a proper implementation of 1930s starry-eyed socialism, in which you first chuck out all the cr@p that will only ever leech off the workers, and then pull up the drawbridge. It has identified the “cr@p” as immigrants.
It’s very hard to see what a right-of-centre free-market party could possibly say to their supporters. The BNP voter wants the immigrants stopped or out, but he also wants protectionism and all the other socialist guff. In other words, a proper traditional Labour platform.
I’m afraid Labour has created the BNP and it is Labour’s burden to sort it out. Labour must basically alter its attitudes so that BNP voters can start voting Labour again. As the party whose platform otherwise most closely resembles the BNP’s, only they can address this.
As Spock said in Star Trek V, there is an old Klingon proverb: only Nixon could go to China.
272. Keith Jenner
“Re the BNP split, here in South Yorkshire, where they are doing particularly well, they certainly don’t seem to be ex Conservatives.”
The BNP get the same sort of disaffected WWC everywhere but the WWC varies from area to area.
In places where there has been a strong tradition of working class Conservatism such as the West Midlands and the Yorkshire and Lancashire mill towns many of the BNP supporters might have been Conservative voters previously. Although even here there might be a shift of these BNP back to the Conservatives and their replacement by former Labour voters.
In areas where voting was along class divisions - South Yorkshire, other mining areas, East London the BNP voters are mostly ex Labour.
375. I’m pretty sure I’ve persuaded one of them to vote Conservative next time.
359 - My general experience of BNP voters is that they are not people that you can have a reasoned debate with.
374 - Well quite. Also the Blind Trust is always by its nature going to act in his best interests, which in many cases although no enacted by the minister in question would result in some interesting “behaviour” with the money / investments.
377 - And yet, and yet … most BNP voters prefer the Tories to Labour according to that YouGov poll.
381 - Yuck, what a lot of typos…I do miss the edit function.
Better cross this one off Gordo list as a possible for an emergency photo op then,
School bans visitors who have not had criminal checks in ‘extreme crackdown’
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1233822/School-bans-visitors-criminal-checks-extreme-crack-down.html#ixzz0Z0cXrksW
93. I’ll be amazed if any of BNP/Green/UKIP stand that many candidates. Where would they get the funds?
The BNP have announced they will stand “about 200″ canddiates in the GE- so anyone betting on votes in the millions for them may be mistaken. Of the “new seats” (compared to 2005) that they have announced that they are standing in, they are usually in safe labour areas- so their impact in terms of losing seats for Labour by eating their majority may be marginal
UKIP intend to fight 475 seats- Greens 400
380. I find that of Labour voters in my neck of the woods. And mostly on here, as well.
Seems Daily Rant are running the Gordo snub story now,
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1233803/BBC-cheapening-repatriation-efforts-Wootton-Bassett-prepares-film-Question-Time.html
382. Forced choice, Southam. Not the same thing. I can’t stand Labour but voted for them in 2005. If you look where BNP voters come from, there was a poll recently that showed most have never voted before and the rest - a minority - split between Lab and Con.
I suspect the typical BNP supporter sees his choices as between one lying racist party that favours his interests, versus another lying racist party that hates him.
382, and yet it’s under a Labour government that the BNP got its first MEPs. It’s the Labour government that played politics with immigration. It’s the Labour government that condemns the EDL but refuses to do the same to any Muslim gangs that attack the EDL, and then the police.
348 EdP
I’m planning a thread piece on Recorded Wagers so hope you can wait for that.
Not all bets are recorded with me so my list is fragmentary. I haven’t analysed it yet but suspect that if anybody is hoping it provides ammunition for the War On Tim, they are going to be disappointed.
380 - That is the case for very many of them, but your comments suggest a dangerous generalisation of this group of people.
There are many people, not just BNP voters, who are being lost to mainstream politics (and I don’t just mean the big three parties).
Also, if you are correct in your assertion that all BNP voters are inherantly racist then this suggests that there are countless more people who feel the same frustrations, but can’t face voting BNP.
I disagree with your assertion, but I believe that the latter is true. Mainstream parties need to listen to and understand the issues these people have or avoid them being irretrievably lost and many of them, after having their concerns seemingly confirmed could move to the extreme parties.
Just saying that these people are a bit think isn’t going to solve the problems.
384
“Welcome at reception”. Thats a load of tosh. There are kids regularly walking past the reception in the school and outside the entrance of the one I have to go to with one of my clients.
Its madness. Everyone is now a suspect. So typically Labour.
382. SO
Of course they do, the average BNP voter has a strong hatred for Labour now. A sense of betrayal is a powerful emotion.
That doesn’t mean that they supported the Conservatives previously or that they would support the Conservatives in the future.
Preference for a Conservative government among BNP supporters is based on the lesser of two evils principle.
They may not like Conservatives but it was Labour who have enabled open door immigration while shouting BJ4BW.
This is just one of many stories about the subject, but can anyone fathom as to why the Telegraph seems to be cosying up quite dramatically with the ‘innocent brigade’ on the Kercher murder?
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/italy/6745221/Amanda-Knox-murder-conviction-Italys-legal-system.html
I’ve read three articles on there today; all seeming to side with the view of this case from the US.
Question:
If the BNP manage to win a seat at westminster, will he/she be,
A. Prevented from entry?
B. Admitted but sent to “Coventry”?
C. Prevented from making a maiden speech? or
D. Covered in love and kisses by the speaker?
360. As one of France’s most notable philosophers said, “When the seagulls follow the trawler….”
My wifes school is apparently in the process of making all members of staff wear ID cards….
Pathetic.
Yorkshire returned the BNP to Europe on the votes from ex-mining areas.
Are we to assume these are hot beds of Tory support?
weathercock @ 295
No doubt sent to Coventry, which is an unfortuate phrase in this case given as to what the Coventry Sound was all about.
382 - We’re talking about a specific group of BNP voters here, those that live in South Yorkshire.
The most spectacular BNP vote increase in the Euros, compared to 2004 was in Barnsley.
Here’s some comparitive numbers.
BNP 16.73% (up 8.79%)
Conservative 15.75% (up 3.39%)
Labour 24.66% (down 17.29%)
Lib Dem 8.68% (down 3.56%)
I don’t think I’d be going out on a limb if I said that the increase in the BNP vote probably didn’t come from the Conservatives.
On Tory seat funding - I have seen no evidence a movement in that direction.
397. Slackbladder
Doubtless with inspections and fines for those who don’t comply sufficiently.
394. Perhaps they have concluded that pot smoker + sexually active does not make you a murderer ?
398 - SallyC
I think my post at 400 goes a long way to answering that.
401 of* a movement in that…
377 - John R -
“As Spock said in Star Trek V, there is an old Klingon proverb: only Nixon could go to China”
Actually it was in Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered country.
Although a lot of Trek fans would like to pretend that the 5th film didnt exist.
377. JohnR it was Star Trek VI! That was the one that paralleled the fall of communism:
“There is an old Vulcan proverb: only Nixon could go to China.”
(Disclaimer: I’m actually much more of s Star Wars fan than a Star Trek fan!)
388 - If most BNP voters have not voted before, and I tend to agree with this, how can they mostly be ex-Labour voters?
Brown’s speech receives mixed response:
http://www.thedailymash.co.uk/politics/politics-headlines/brown-unveils-radical-package-of-lies-and-bullshit-200912072286/
406. Snap!
The Ghost of Harry Flashman @ 403
If she was a crazed pot smoker, she would have chewed her victim to death, a tragic accident where she mistook her for food, or more likely she would have bored her to death.
Stabbing & Dope, goes together like Gordon Brown & Apologise
Looks like it is kicking of big time in Iran again,
Iranian police have clashed with opposition supporters in central Tehran, witnesses say.
Police used batons and tear gas, according to the witnesses. There were also unconfirmed reports of security forces using live rounds.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/middle_east/8398615.stm
404. It’s a good answer. I am amazed that Labour persist in playing silly games with this point rather then addressing the problem.
Fortunately, I find Labour councillors on the ground appreciate full well what’s happening.
411. My conclusion was “don’t get arrested in Italy” but I’m refining that to “don’t go to Italy”.
400 - It’s interesting to note, speaking to my Labour activist friends who still live and canvass in South Yorkshire, that they see
1) Stopping the BNP as their Prime Goal of the next election
2) To achieve aim 1) They are focussing on the areas that were considered Labour strongholds.
400 - If John R is right the BNP gains mostly came from people who had not voted before. I tend to think that is correct. I don’t think people switch from Labour to BNP, I think that disillusioned Labour supporters tend to switch to another mainstream party or don’t bother to vote (which is why turnouts in many solid Labour constituencies tend to be low), while BNP voters are energised first or second timers.
410 - I’m clearly more of a geek, I like both of them.
417, the best thing about Star Trek was Jadzia Dax.
415 - A strong BNP vote tends to energise Labour voters to turn out in subsequent elections. It has happened on many occasions and probably will do so again.
414. My take home message was “don’t murder people in Italy”.
Deterrence - dontcha just love it?
415. Snap.
The refrain from losing Labour councillors in Yorkshire at this years locals was simple. Large swathes of their voters went to the BNP.
Apologies if this has been posted before
Exclusive: the truth about that PMQs
http://www.newstatesman.com/blogs/public-accounts/2009/12/prime-minister-brown-alexander
Health Warning, it’s a James MacIntyre story
390 Thanks Peter. Very occasionally, I’m tempted by some of the offers from that poster; it’s due diligence on my part.
417. “The Wrath of Khan” does have arguably the best film score* ever though!
*excluding those by John Williams!
By the way, based on a fairly small sample, I’ve found when canvassing that people who are willing to state at the door that they will vote BNP generally have a history of voting previously.
Of course, I don’t know about those who won’t say. It wouldn’t surprise me if many of these are new voters.
This was missed, how?
http://www.thedailymash.co.uk/politics/politics-headlines/brown-unveils-radical-package-of-lies-and-bullshit-200912072286/
“GORDON Brown today pledged to cut Britain’s deficit with a radical package of outright lies.”
418 - She was number 2, T’pol was number 1 for me.
Oh, FFS!
Some 123 quangos will go - including the Foreign Office advisory committee on wine purchasing
http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/d91badf6-e2d0-11de-b028-00144feab49a.html
SO, I’m certainly not disagreeing that a large proportion of BNP voters are first timers.
However, especially round here, I’m pretty sure that those who are not first time voters are predominately ex Labour supporters. That is still a significant amount of people.
425 I have found the same. Telephone canvassing produces a more direct response. They tend to suggest that they have voted for the BNP ‘this time’. They are often established voters some of who are influencing their first time voting kids.
427, I disagree entirely. Normally I’d fight you to the death (yours), but in this case I think we can settle this amicably. I shall have Jadzia, and you can have the Vulcan strumpet.
426, I posted it above, at 409.
424 - The films composer was one James Horner, who had a cameo in it as well.
427: Seven of Nine…
428: tim will be dissapointed.
428. That will lead to a huge sigh of relief on gilt desks across the square mile…
2/3 of seats in GE05 had a UKIP candidate whereas just under 1/3 had a Green candidate. The real question is will there be many Green candidates around for voters to vote for. There will certainly be 500 UKIP ones.
419 - It does have an energising effect, is why I’m expecting the BNP not to repeat their sucess of the Euros
428 Hurrah! The British economy is saved…
431/433 - Actually I want both T’Pol and Seven of Nine, concurrently.
435: but how many will be just paper canditates with no funding?
419 - This was demonstrated at the recent by election in Barnsley where the Labour voters came out to beat the BNP challenger.
418
Sherry Jackson, tOS ‘What are Little Girls Made Of?’
(Ok I know she doesn’t look like Camille Paglia…)
440. Was he badly injured ?
438, you and Slackbladder will have to duel
Also, won’t your wife kill you (twice)?
438: Talk about greedy….
432. Yes of Titanic fame, but what was his scene in Wrath?
438. Eagles
Don’t forget to add Mrs Eagles into the fun
443 - My wife is very understanding.
She too has her Golden Rules.
1) My cheating will result in castration, with a rusty nail.
446 - Fun? Mrs Eagles? Are we talking about the same woman.
438 Im with screaming on this.
Also I think the daily mash article that says Gordon is trying to reduce the deficit through sponsored lying is unfortunately lacking in the sponsorship. If it wasn’t then Gordon and his on strike diciples would be the heroes of the nation.
445 - His scene, IIRC, he was the Starfleet Officer, towards the end of the film, when they are loading the photon torpedos as they were about to fight in the Mutara Nebula.
New Series this evening, C4, Man on Earth.
As world leaders meet in Copenhagen to agree an international deal on climate change, Tony Robinson travels back through 200,000 years of human history to discover the effects of fluctuating weather patterns.
Think I might give that one a miss somehow.
Eagles
I imagine there’s good money to be made if you create a website for all this
Fancy becoming PB’s answer to Ron Jeremy
BBC Panorama doing a “Can you forgive your MP for being a greedy fiddling bar-steward” starring everybodies favourite chipmunk.
452 - I’m more John Holmes than Ron Jeremy.
445/450 - Ignore that post, his role was
“He running down a corridor during the preparation for the final battle, just before the torpedoes are loaded into the launch bay”
YouGov Poll Comparison.
GB: Cons: 40%; LAB 27%; LD 18%.
England & Wales: Cons 42%; LAB 26.3%; LD 17.9%
Thus Cons lead in England & Wales is 15.7% compared with 13% for GB.
Thus can it be assumed that in general for England & Wales that the Conservative lead is some 2%-3% above that stated for GB?
451. But doesn’t that just go to show that the climate has always been “changing”?
At the height of the Ice Age 20,000 years back, sea level was over 300 ft (100 m) lower than it is today.
454 - you’re dead?
http://www.spectator.co.uk/coffeehouse/5609693/this-weeks-pbr-looks-set-to-be-browns-most-political-budget-yet.thtml
Surely some mistake, Gordo always does thinks that are best for the nation doesn’t he?
One effect Gordo’s behaviour must be having (and be interesting if the Tories play this card), that during the dying days of the Major government (and I am no fan-boy lets make that clear) many of the measures on the economy were aimed at being for the good of the nation, rather than all about trying to save as much of John’s grey skin.
re 456. Which, given that the Tories were ahead in England at the last general election suggests that there is no differential
430 - Sally C (and anyone else who has a view).
Do I take it from your comment that you feel that Telephone Canvassing gives a more realistic view than doorstep canvassing due to people feeling more comfortable being honest over the phone if they are against?
That is my view, and I was discussing it the other day with someone. I think that doorstep canvassing gives an over optimistic picture and telephone canvassing is likely to produce more pessimistic, but more accurate, results.
451. He’s a real expert on the subject, you know.
458 - Ok, not the comparison to John Holmes I was thinking of.
455. Ah thanks, yes I remember that bit!
Wells on the private polling:
http://ukpollingreport.co.uk/blog/archives/2372
My gut feeling is that there will be Lib switchers in the Con-Lab seats, though not by a huge amount. It will help in the marginals, but it will be the floating voters who will determine it. That is those who voted for Blair not Labour in 1997, of which there were quite a few. Out of interest I wonder if in Lab-Lib marginals will the Conservative voters go LibDem? That could make things a bit more interesting…
458. I’m hairier than Ron Jeremy!
(shit! did I just press “Send”??)
This could be a real problem for getting those Iraq-shifters from the LibDems…
UK accused of rendition over men arrested in Iraq
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/8398630.stm
445 Also of Aliens score fame.
The main theme is based on a quoted riff from Khachaturian’s Gayane Ballet Suite, which was also used in 2001.
Jerry Goldsmith’s opening title theme for Total Recall has been used in loads of trailers for different movies since.
459 - Sorry forgot to make my point
That shows the likes of Major (putting his liking for a spot of Currie to one side) and Ken Clarke behaviour in a far better light.
466 - Sadly, my lack of hair on my head is disturbing me, soon, I may end up getting mistaken for OGH.
The Screaming Eagles @ 447
Don’t leave any golf clubs hanging around.
Some interesting sponsors of the Climate Change Meeting,
http://en.cop15.dk/about+cop15
Hat-tip:- Guido
468. Yes the Aliens score was based on Wrath of Khan, most notably the Weather Processing station bit at the end (as the drop ship approaches). I think there some issues with time given for Horner to come up with an entirely new score.
Ed Jnr just had some tough questions re climate change on R5 - not a singe supportive caller or message read out.
Mayo said the response had been overwhelmingly sceptical - interesting times. Since this is the BBC, I can only assume that there were *no* supportive comments at all otherwise they’d have read it out.
Cameron taking flak for his non existent marriage tax policy.
http://www.thisislondon.co.uk/standard/article-23780760-single-mothers-tories-make-us-feel-like-second-class-families.do
If only Tiger Woods had got his marriage recognised in the tax system.
472. And to think some greenies still think this is about bringing down capitalism and big business.
474
“I can only assume that there were *no* supportive comments at all otherwise they’d have read it out.”
At least twice…
473. I didn’t know that - I have heard he got next to no time to do the score so not surprising he plagiarised himself if so.
Can’t figure out why only the even-numbered Treks were any good.
With most franchise type movies they simply get worse. The Alien movies are a case in point. Predator another (good score though).
474 - Green voters must seriously be considering voting Labour or Lib Dem to keep out a split Tory party on this issue.
Or do we expect Dave to slap down the Delingpole wing?
477
But wait for the carefully organised, spontaneous backlash to begin…
475. Not all married couples actually live together - compare with cohabitation.
475. As if Tiger would want to live in Gordons 50% tax/wrong side of the Laffer curve UK.
He’d flee like Lewis Hamilton and Jensen Button et al.
Tim: Brown’s Record
“His former chief scientist Professor Sir David King said he frequently urged Downing Street to spend money on energy saving measures in order to create jobs and cut carbon – but was repeatedly ignored. ”
“Achim Steiner, the head of the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP), also said the Labour Government failed to “pick the low hanging fruit” of insulating homes and investing in renewable energy.”
Genius
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/copenhagen-climate-change-confe/6745082/Copenhagen-climate-summit-Gordon-Browns-climate-change-record-attacked.html
Inevitable I suppose? But will this mean we get to see lots more of Jeremy Vine being a cowboy to fill in the gaps?
BBC prepares for longest election night
General election programme to run from Thursday night to the following afternoon as some councils delay count to cut costs
http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2009/dec/04/bbc-longest-election-night
http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/benedictbrogan/100019110/tory-efficiency/
“Gordon Brown has been speaking about his passion for public sector efficiency, which must have Mr Tony rolling about laughing in Azerbaijan or wherever he’s coining it this morning. The Tories have produced their own spot of efficiency in response, namely the setting up of a shadow productivity advisory board which will help David Cameron and George Osborne find ways of making the public sector do more for less. The group is time-limited – it will be disbanded at the election, so it’s not a new quango…”
479. Chill, tim. Cameron’s going to win and by 2014 the left will have stopped talking about AGW as rapidly and completely as it stopped talking about eugenics after 1945.
“When the facts change, I change my opinion. What do you do, sir?” - John Maynard Keynes
“I use Mike’s Nature trick to change the facts back again.” - “Professor” Phil Jones, climate “scientist”
480. Just like “I am a life long Sun reader, and I could hardly imagine why you are chastising Mr James Gordon Brown, PhD and Bar, for writing such a heart warming letter to Mrs Janes. The old bag’s own son would disown her branding….” Cont p94.
PS David Cameron eats babies.
Just a word on Gingerbread that Cameron spoke at today,
“26 per cent of total income, including grant funding from DCSF and FSA towards core costs, and £450,000 from J.K. Rowling’s Volant Trust.
Income for Information and Advice services was £654,704 and we are grateful to the Royal Bank of Scotland for their continued funding throughout the year. We also received funding from HMRC and from the DCSF’s Parenting Fund.”
On BNP voters prefering a Tory government to a Labour one.
That sounds about right. But it’s wrong to suggest that such voters are natural friends of the Tories based on the evidence at hand.
The places where the BNP do well are usually bedrocks of Labour support, in inner-London or the urban north. If they win an election it is usually because the Labour vote has plummeted. That suggests a certain eating away of the Labour vote.
In my mind, at least, the average BNP voter would not vote Tory because they would consider themselves voting for a middle-class party who don’t necessarily have their interests at heart. BUT they prefer them to Labour (who the BNP loathe) because of the multicultural policy (they might have voted Labour previously though, because they felt they had the interests of the working class at heart).
However, they know the Tories’ stance on immigration, Europe etc is more in line with their thinking (though much less extreme) as opposed to Labour’s enthusiastic backing of the European project and, whatever they say, strongly pro-immigration policies.
As such when faced with a question, they would prefer a Tory government but they’d never actually vote Tory. Do you see what I mean? I’d prefer a Lib Dem government to a Labour one, but I’ve never gone out to the polling station and voted Lib Dem.
By the way, just wondering do we know who hacked the UEA computer system?
Climate change has been going on ever since the Earth first formed about 4 billion years ago. At one stage, there was no oxygen at all in the atmosphere, it was a by-product of the first photo-synthetic bacteria, and was actually deadly to other types of microbes then in existence.
488 (cont) -
We also delivered training on New Deal for Single parents (for Jobcentre Plus) and tax credits (for HMRC).
484.
The commission has written to all 650 constituency returning officers, and has so far received 490 responses, with 53 saying they will conduct Friday counts. A total of 273 said they will do so on Thursday evening, and declare within hours, as normal. A further 154 respondents said they have yet to come to a decision.
In addition, all 10 constituencies in Birmingham, one of the key electoral batttlegrounds with a number of marginal seats, have written to the commission to say they will also count on Friday if the election is held on the same day as next year’s local elections on 6 May. That is regarded by most observers as the most likely date for prime minister Gordon Brown to call the general election.
Here’s one job I wouldn’t fancy today, moderating this article by Dave’s big tax beneficiary Zac Goldsmith.
Although Zac does seem to be deliberately trying to do something
I remember opening a tabloid one day to find a photograph of myself next to the image of a giant pink vibrator and under the headline “Goldsmith wants to ban dildos” (because sex toys are apparently energy inefficient)
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/cif-green/2009/dec/07/media-inaccurate-green-scare-stories
I’m off to Copenhagen, I wonder if I’ll meet Sean T there
Prostitutes in Copenhagen have reportedly announced plans to offer their services for free to UN climate summit delegates.
The move has been planned to protest the anti-prostitution initiative undertaken by Copenhagen city hall over the course of the December 7-18 summit in the Danish capital, AFP reports.
http://www.digitalspy.co.uk/odd/news/a190233/prostitutes-offer-free-sex-in-protest.html
473 - Horner is a shameless self-whore. He’s a good composer, but nobody rips themselves off as much as him. Go to YouTube and listen to, I think, The Machine Age from Bicentennial Man and Kaleidoscope and Mathematics from the Beautiful Mind Soundtrack. They’re so similar it’s staggering.
Chief Scientist Prof John Beddington has stepped into the row.
He’s just told Wato that he believed the leaking of the emails was a “conspiracy” to undermine Copenhagen. The prof freely admitted that he had no evidence for this belief, merely a strong suspicion that the timing was not coincidental.
http://waugh.standard.co.uk/2009/12/climategate-chief-scientist-says-conspiracy.html
493. 273 of 490 (those who responded) = 56% prefer Thursday.
496 - The Four Tops are serious contenders in this category. You have to admire the sheer nerve of a group who follow up “I can’t help myself” with a song called “It’s the same old song” that is the same old song.
490. I hope they don’t find out because whoever it is stands a very good chance of winding up dead.
As Guido the killer pimp said in Risky Business, “In times of economic uncertainty, never ever f*ck with another man’s livelihood.”
Which had another great score. The subway ride anyway.
Oh dear, Gordo out-manoeuvred again,
Government efficiency tsars sign up for Tories
Gordon Brown faced a major blow today when four government advisers on efficiency including Sir Peter Gershon, the architect of plans to slim the civil service, announced they were to advise the Conservatives.
Bernard Gray, who conducted a major defence review which was highly critical of the Ministry of Defence, will also join Sir Peter on the Tories Public Services Productivity Advisory Board.
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/politics/article6947411.ece
493 It would be a shame were we denied Birmingham’s declarations ‘on the night’-I suppose we can console ourselves with Dudley/Wolverhampton/Walsall/Sandwell giving a very good indication of the swing in the West Midlands conurbation ‘on the night’
490 Jonathan
How do you know they were hacked into?
Explanations. The Russians or Chinese, a whistleblower, user incompetence.
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2009/11/23/the-crutape-letters%C2%AE-an-alternate-explanation/
497
“The prof freely admitted that he had no evidence for this belief, merely a strong suspicion ”
Ah well there will always be a job waiting for him at the UEA with that attitude
496. Indeed, I actually watched ET yesterday morning on one of the Freeview channels - just to listen to that gorgeous John Williams score!
447. I can see where you might get the middle name ’screaming’ from.
Just heard Alex Salmond on 5Live. He wished England all the best for teh world cup. From this side of the border and not being goverened by him he comes across as a class act. Unlike the broken robot who lives in No 10 and gave that rubbish speech this morning.
490 Jonathan, no, but have you considered the possibility that the information was *leaked* by an insider rather than hacked?
The ICM-Sunday Telegraph full results are published.
http://www.icmresearch.co.uk/pdfs/2009_dec_st_climate_poll.pdf
For certain to vote (523 people)
GB: Cons: 41%; LAB 29%; LD 17%
North; Inc Scotland: Cons: 27%; LAB 38%; LD 16%; SNP 10%.
Midlands; Inc Wales: Cons: 43%; LAB 29%; LD 18%; PC 3%.
South; Inc London: Cons: 52%; LAB 20%; LD 18%.
NB Poll of 699 people gave Cons: 40%; LAB 29%; LD 19%.
No definition of how the 699 is derived but presumably 6-10 certainty to vote.
490. 497. Apparently it’s all a conspiracy, involving the Russians and perhaps the Chinese and shady middle Eastern types as well.
116.”Does anyone think that all the “eat the rich” stories over the weekend were to soften us up for some really bad news on Wednesday? Perhaps there’s going to be an announcement on NIC or the basic rate of tax or a huge hike in fuel duty? Last year the PBR run up was dominated by leaks about how we were all going to be given a pre Christmas tax break but in reality we got very little. I think there’s going to be a lot of pain for everyone on Wednesday and the government is trying to use the “hang the bankers!” mood as a disraction.”
Oncoming Storm, I think that you are right about this. Its going to be the usual Brownite smoke and mirrors in this PBR. They will be hoping for political headlines which highlight their beloved dividing lines while the small print eases market jitters and the electorate missed any nasty stealthy taxes. I am still convinced that we will not see a budget this side of the GE for obvious reasons, and that the government are in no position to undo what is already coming to a pay packet near you next April. That would really upset the markets.
Lots of noises about tackling the deficit at some point after the GE. Gordon does so like to kick all the difficult decisions into the long grass until then, a leopard cannot change its spots.
“Green voters must seriously be considering voting Labour or Lib Dem to keep out a split Tory party on this issue.”
Why?
Labour promises on green issues are as worthless as they are on deficit reduction. A few vague promises of what will be done in 10 years time but without a proper policy to get there.
If Labour was serious about reducing carbon emissions then they would have a huge increase in fuel and airport taxes, increase VAT on domestic fuel and bring in tariffs on imports from countries with poor environmental records.
503 Well it was rather convenient timing wasn’t it.
I guess I am a suspicious type by nature, but the story of how these got into the public domain now is probably as interesting as their content.
508.
!!!!!!!!
Midlands; Inc Wales: Cons: 43%; LAB 29%; LD 18%; PC 3%.
499. In a similar vein, Meatloaf’s ratio of greatest hits compilation CDs to CDs of actual new material must be among the highest in the biz.
512
Agree that there must be a fascinating inside story about what really went on.
“The prof freely admitted that he had no evidence for this belief, merely a strong suspicion ”
Ah well there will always be a job waiting for him at the UEA with that attitude
by The Ghost of Harry Flashman December 7th, 2009 at 2:35 pm”
Funnily enough - how about this for a quote from Mssrs & Co of UEA
“The results of this study will show that we can probably say a fair bit about 100 year variability was like with any certainty (i.e. we know with certainty that we know f*ck-all).”
http://bishophill.squarespace.com/blog/2009/12/7/quote-of-the-day.html
512. Careful, or your friend Tim will have you down as a ‘whackjob’.
512
Well the Uni called in the police, so if there was any malpractice we should find out. Hacks, internal and external, leave traces that are pretty easy to spot. So if the system was hacked we’ll find out.
The other possibles are the inside job/whistleblower. Again it is likely there will be some trace, eg, a system log of the file download.
Last we have incompetence. Previous leaks of info from the Uni, turned out not to be leaks, but the idiots leaving the stuff on open survers that were accesible from the web.
Can’t wait for the police report myself.
512 They were leaked to Paul Hudson at the BBC on Oct 12th and the BBC did bugger all with them.
I assume that the leaker implemented Plan B when they didn’t get a result.
The BBC have some serious questions to answer.
new thread
After watchin Nigel Lawson over the weekend, I concerned that he has been body swapped with Colonel Gaddafi.
380 - I know a couple of BNP voters, you can debate with them sure enough.
One of them I know works in the city and is not the knuckle dragging type at all.
512 Jonathan - What does it matter?
This is fast becoming a textbook example of how NOT to respond to a PR disaster. We’ve seen insults thrown at anyone who asks questions about the significance, attempts to blame Big Oil and other bogeymen, attempts to imply it’s all the hackers’ fault that these e-mails were written, and now talk of a conspiracy.
All of which merely adds fuel to the fire.
The correct response - and I haven’t seen a single attempt to do this - would be to accept that the CRU data must now be regarded as possibly tainted pendng further investigation, but to point to the body of other data which remains untainted (if there is any - this is completely unclear, since no-one has attempted to explain how important the CRU data and the tainted peer-review papers were to the overall picture).
382 - most of the BNP voters I know are ex labour. some of the younger ones may never have voted before, I think the Euros / locals was their first vote.
152.”Why would the Conservatives pour time, cash and other resources into safer opposition seats where Tory prospects have diminished somewhat. Pissing in the electoral wind isn’t an overly bright option in my view and Comrade Pickles is many things but slim on politcal nous isn’t one of his failings.”
Because JackW, there are no no go area’s anymore. And yes, some difficult marginals will be beyond their scope at the next GE. But after so long in the wilderness of -200 seats while some pretty big area’s of the North were left under resourced and neglected, they are not just rebuilding their operation there for this GE. There are seats that they fully expect to miss this time around, but they want to be much better positioned for next time. That is a much more plausible scenario than that bit of spin about them pulling out and admitting defeat up to six months before the next GE with an electoral mountain to climb.