As the New Year rolls in Alastair Meeks makes his predictions

As the New Year rolls in Alastair Meeks makes his predictions

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2016: Things that mostly won’t happen Making predictions is a mug’s game as I showed in my last post.  So I shall now prove that I have not learned from experience and have another go. To understand where we are going, we first need to understand where we are now.  Politics has changed out of all recognition since the general election.  Let’s sum up the essentials: We have a Conservative government with a tiny overall majority. We have a Labour…

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Star War images: Jedi Jezza and Stormtrooper Osbo

Star War images: Jedi Jezza and Stormtrooper Osbo

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The Donald Brind column – from a Labour perspective An old joke was given fresh legs just before Christmas when George Osborne set out to sprinkle some stardust on his image with an appearance at the premiere of Star Wars. Q. Why did 4,000 people boo George Osborne? A. Because that’s how many the cinema holds. In the original version it was the 80,000 capacity of the Olympic stadium that limited the opprobrium heaped on the Chancellor during the 2012…

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All the pollsters finding that current LAB voters reluctant to give Corbyn their full backing

All the pollsters finding that current LAB voters reluctant to give Corbyn their full backing

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Corbyn has got the Ed Miliband problem Looking back over GE2015 polls what should have raised questions about the voting intention findings was that in all the leader ratings of different forms Ed Miliband was always a long way behind Cameron. I made that mistake. People are voting for a Prime Minister and their view of the contenders is, as I’ve argued, a much better pointer to election outcomes than their party choice where the polls have failed twice in…

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Local By-Election Review 2015 : Part One

Local By-Election Review 2015 : Part One

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Running before the Storm : Before the General Election (24 local by-elections) It was fairly obvious as soon as Big Ben chimed midnight ushering in the arrival of 2015 that everyone’s mind would instantly focus on the general election (indeed some of the parties started campaigning almost immediately the Christmas decorations came down) but local by-elections are no respecter of national campaigns and within days of those decorations coming down the local by-election circus started up again in Bolsover where…

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How much should those with 33/1 Sadiq Khan vouchers cover themselves on a Zac victory?

How much should those with 33/1 Sadiq Khan vouchers cover themselves on a Zac victory?

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A betting position that’s very nice to be in Back in March 2013 Henry G Manson gave what might prove to be one of the best ever political betting tips here when he said get on Sadiq Khan, then at 33/1, for next London Mayor. At the time other Labour figures were seen as having better chances of being selected as candidate for the next Mayoral election. Henry G, with his great knowledge of how LAB works, thought differently and…

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Alastair Meeks compares his predictions for 2015 with what actually happened

Alastair Meeks compares his predictions for 2015 with what actually happened

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2015 – the past is a country of which I knew little Every year I sit down at Christmas and try to work out what will happen in the following twelve months.  I do this not because I have any great confidence in my predictive power – as you’re about to see, that would be an illustration of the Dunning-Kruger effect – but because it is useful to have a record of what I thought might be going to happen…

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The internal squabbles in Mr. Corbyn’s Labour – part 105

The internal squabbles in Mr. Corbyn’s Labour – part 105

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The tweet that LAB whip Graham Morris has now deleted. pic.twitter.com/BQ4b09Bn68 — Mike Smithson (@MSmithsonPB) December 29, 2015 @georgeeaton Shows the real agenda of the 15 or so MP's who support Corbyn though.Seumas Milne is arranging all the briefings of course. — ForgottenGenius (@ExStrategist) December 29, 2015 Well, there's spin. And then there's this. https://t.co/wre3GEZZ4o pic.twitter.com/ALY0dNNIGv — Liam Hill (@liamjlhill) December 29, 2015 Team Corbyn seems more interested in fighting LAB dissenters who it often refers to as Tories than…

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Zac to win mayoralty, Corbyn to survive, Trump to fail: Ipsos MORI poll on what people think will happen in 2016

Zac to win mayoralty, Corbyn to survive, Trump to fail: Ipsos MORI poll on what people think will happen in 2016

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Ipsos MORI poll on what Britons think will happen in 2016 pic.twitter.com/3iMR8qkECm — Mike Smithson (@MSmithsonPB) December 29, 2015 Ipsos MORI 2016 prediction poll – Sport etc pic.twitter.com/V2zVmIrJqY — Mike Smithson (@MSmithsonPB) December 29, 2015 Ipsos MORI 2016 prediction poll Economic pic.twitter.com/aSm7PtQwHC — Mike Smithson (@MSmithsonPB) December 29, 2015 Welcome 2016 – Prediction Time It’s that time of year when people look to the next year and start making predictions. One new development on this that I don’t recall seeing…

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