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Opinium’s “new methodology” has the LAB lead down to just 3% – politicalbetting.com
Opinium’s “new methodology” has the LAB lead down to just 3% – politicalbetting.com
I have been in the hospital all day and only just returned home and my plan is to do something more on tonight’s Opinium poll when I have had time to study it more closely.
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It's a bit of a problem for people to answer don't know to that question if they're very likely to make a choice when the day comes.
Maybe it's the wrong question to ask in midterm altogether, and approval/best PM questions are easier for people to give a meaningful answer to.
Given Bozo’s current issues there is a valid argument that a 2019 Tory don't know poster is just a Tory voter who is very to slightly annoyed but will return to the fold at the next election.
Anyway, as said earlier: Two months and six days since the last Tory poll lead*.
(* Redfield & Wilton, 6th December)
I said he’d live to regret it. My view is unchanged.
Btw, all the best, @MikeSmithson
@Dannythefink I’ve known [Boris] for almost forty years. I like him. But this is a properly big and important story which we all have to cover.
Iain Martin
@iainmartin
Indeed. Run into him and he's always amusing, interesting, energising. The sort of person who should be writing books and making historical TV documentaries, adding to the gaiety of the nation. Which is what he was doing. PM? Different thing now and the parties prove it.
Both methodologies are reasonable and as long as you know that they are measuring different things I don't have a problem with either.
We can now expect Opinium to be regularly out of line with the other main pollsters, but we can also expect the gap between Opinium and the rest to gradually reduce as we near election day and the imponderables lessen over time.
@haynesdeborah As US warns of impending Russian invasion potential, a Ukrainian friend just told me about 70% of the chat today on his Facebook among friends is about… who will represent Ukraine in @Eurovision 2022
https://twitter.com/haynesdeborah/status/1492598451980447752
I’ve interacted with Aaron for many years. Indeed, I had to pay up after losing a bet to him back in 2010.
I don’t underestimate his political judgment. It surprised me when he made, what seemed to me, like an obvious miscalculation. I might be wrong, but I don’t think I am.
"Authorities in New Zealand have been playing Barry Manilow's greatest hits in an attempt to dislodge protesters camped outside the parliament building. Songs by the US singer are being played on a 15-minute loop, along with the Spanish dance tune, Macarena. The demonstrators, who are angry at Covid-19 vaccine mandates, responded by playing songs such as Twisted Sister's We're Not Gonna Take It."
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-60362529
The list of MPs who have gone on record like Bell includes newbies and oldies, those with massive majorities and those in marginals. If personal calculation was the primary factor for them there would be a lot more unformity in who was calling Boris out.
Any more egregious missteps from @Tissue_Price, be sure to call them out.
The chicken coop could describe the Tory party of course, or even chicken coup.
Not sure they are selling a chummy image to be honest. Both of them think he is unfit to be PM and it has been a massive mistake iirc.
' If that is their belief they'd probably stick to staying schtum.'
They would also most likely have stuck to the rather better paid employment they left to go into politics.
I don't share Aaron Bell's politics but I'm pretty sure he went into the biz for the best of reasons, as so many do.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5E_H3X_jQ0o&t=1894s
Seemed genuine to me.
I'm with Aaron.
On topic, I don't think it tells us much that we didn't know from looking at other polls - there is a large group of Con 2019 voters who now say "Don't know" or "Won't vote". It is risky to assume they'll all vote, or that none of them will.
The head-shaking over Tissue Rprice/Aaron is also premature. First, it's not only about career - if he feels the PM should be replaced, there's a case for saying so without cynical calculation. Second, it's really anyone's guess how the Met investigation and its political consequences will work out.
"He is a very dangerous man" said my dad. I didn't know what he meant at the time, it wasn't the kind of thing my dad (a serious student of the history of the Nazis who had an LP of Hitler's speeches) said lightly.
“ "Authorities in New Zealand have been playing Barry Manilow's greatest hits in an attempt to dislodge protesters “
Can’t read the rest, laughing too hard.
Not sure this doesn't just obfuscate stuff. We all know Labour tend to underperform their polling. Though not always in 2010 and 2017. But generally. Consistency is good.
Problem with that is who are his enemies?
If he withdraws the whip from those obviously declared (TissuePrice et al.) then he'd lose about 20MPs. Not enough to lose his majority, but it would go from 76 to 36 overnight. Not great.
They'd then sit on the opposition benches glaring for the next two years.... good or not? Who knows.
Plus, it doesn't get rid of all of Johnson's 'bastards'.
Get rid of all declared and suspected?
Can't. He'd lose his majority and quite likely lose the next VONC tabled by Labour. GE.
Austria is sticking with its opposition to including the Nord Stream 2 gas pipeline in a package of sanctions against Moscow that the European Union is preparing in the event Russia invades Ukraine, Foreign Minister Alexander Schallenberg said on Friday.
Ipsos Mori changed their methodology some years ago by introducing a 1-10 'likely to vote' addition and then being unsure of which was most accurate posted both sets of results every time they polled and asked the poll watchers to take their pick! It was bonkers!
Con 32%
Lab 42%
Lib Dem 9%
Green 5%
So there is no evidence that Labour’s position has weakened over the past two weeks.
https://twitter.com/OpiniumResearch/status/1492590622028484608
https://www.spiked-online.com/2022/02/12/liz-truss-an-embarrassment-to-britain/
"According to Russian media reports, not denied by the UK side, Truss’s chilly encounter with her vastly more experienced Russian opposite number, Sergey Lavrov, included an exchange that went roughly like this.
Truss: ‘Russia must move its troops away from the Ukrainian border, or else…’ Lavrov: ‘Why should we? It’s up to Russia where it deploys its troops inside Russia’ (which, of course, it is). He then asked, for good measure: ‘Do you recognise Russia’s sovereignty over the Rostov and Voronezh regions?’ At which point Truss mounted her high horse and responded with all the authority of the UK’s chief diplomat: ‘The UK will never recognise Russia’s sovereignty over these regions.’
This is where the UK’s ambassador to Moscow, Deborah Bronnert, is said to have leant across to Truss and discreetly informed her that these regions were actually in Russia. Her assumption had apparently been that they were the two so-called breakaway regions on the Ukrainian side of the border."
Ukraine not looking great. Israel, Saudi and Italy now joining AUKUS, etc, in advising all citizens to leave
The Sunday Times says an invasion is expected “Wednesday” after a false flag, probably in Donbas, on Monday or Tuesday
Alarmingly specific
The Opinium situation does seem a bit odd. It's almost as if no-one can believe that Labour are doing so well and are fiddling the figures accordingly.
On Ukraine, I still don't think Russia will invade. Some skirmishing perhaps but no full-scale invasion. I may be wrong.
Best-selling author Adam Kay has been desperately trying to remove from the internet any trace of the vile songs Your Baby and Northern Birds, which he recorded as part of a comedy duo called Amateur Transplants.
I saw Amateur Transplants the day after the 2010 general election and they were fantastic. The interesting thing is, those two songs aren’t the most offensive.
I think it’s sad that comedy is being destroyed by wokeness. Neither Adam Kay or Suman Biswas would approve of the stuff they sing about. But like Jimmy Carr, they’re act plays on our prejudices and has a cynical view of the world.
Adam Kay's book, which I quite liked, nevertheless has some rather schoolboy 'humour' misogynism about it.
But on the broader point, it is absolutely NOT the case that all topics are fair game. Any decent human being doesn't make jokes about the deaths of people: whether Romas or children, for example.
I'm weary of the attack on 'wokeness' being used as a front for plain nasty, vile, human behaviour.
The Nasty Party is back.
(But I expect when Sandpit gets up in Dubai he will still like your post, so that's alright then)
Wow. Standards in Britain have sunk low.
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/tv/0/going-hurt-review-ben-whishaw-delivers-warts-and-all-portrait/
'The book was wildly popular, selling 2.5 million copies to date. I was one of the few readers who didn’t love it. Although it was snappily written and an excellent insight into how hospitals work, there was an unpleasant streak of misogyny running through it and a sniggering schoolboy humour that no woman who has spent time on an obs and gynae ward – or “brats and t--ts”, as it is charmingly referred to – wants to read. Say, a description of a patient’s vulval condition as looking “like cauliflower florets, mate”, or the delineation between the work of midwives and doctors sometimes being “a greyer area than your nan’s vagina”. You get the picture.'
https://www.mk.ru/politics/2022/02/13/smi-zapad-zakroet-dlya-poletov-vozdushnoe-prostranstvo-ukrainy.html
"@nickschifrin
Asked whether the embassy was burning documents already and moving classified equipment, the official said the embassy was “reducing those holdings” and “reducing that volume of equipment,” without being specific.
1:56 PM · Feb 12, 2022"
https://news.sky.com/story/boris-johnson-to-head-to-scotland-for-start-of-levelling-up-tour-as-he-battles-to-survive-partygate-12540726
https://twitter.com/Osinttechnical/status/1492742551392161792?s=20&t=3UlNi8ge7VGay55J8beQcg
What is interesting in regards to the charge of misogyny is the high ratio of male to female obstetricians and gynaecologists here compared with the United States (source: nothing more scientific than a quick glance at a couple of hospital websites). ETA: see below; even if wrong about UK vs USA, male dominance of the speciality was historically true, partly because nearly all doctors of any sort were male.
Having binge-watched the series last night, the overwhelming impression was that this was Cardiac Arrest updated, even down to the [redacted: spoiler]. That and wondering why the protagonist's rich parents did not buy him a better car.
OK here are a couple of references about the increasing number of female O&G doctors:-
USA https://www.latimes.com/health/la-me-male-gynos-20180307-htmlstory.html
Australia & New Zealand (with the interesting wrinkle that until recently most would train in Britain) https://obgyn.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/pdf/10.1111/ajo.12969
Canada & US https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3296153/
Of course, much of this increased feminisation might simply reflect the far greater numbers of female medical students (and therefore doctors entering the profession) in recent times. The point is that this might be expected to reduce and eventually remove any residual misogyny.
Only slightly, mind. He’s still the useful idiot of a mass murdering twat who would look much better having a nasty and amusing accident with a ten foot pole that goes up his arse.
I recall going up to Maternity on one occasion and being overheard by the Nurse Manager who wanted to know 'what that man was doing in my unit"!
Having said that I used to have to visit, in a professional capacity, Family Planning Clinics and have said here before that I found the exclusively female staff some of the most pleasant people with whom I ever worked. Somewhat 'earthy' humour on occasion, but none the worse for that.
Mr. JohnL, that does remind me a little of the surprising finding (I heard decades ago, so no source alas) that female jurors are more likely to find an accused rapist innocent, whereas male jurors are more likely to find them guilty.
On at least that occasion, individuals seem content to, if they have a bias, be against their own sex rather than the other.
What’s weird is if this was Radio 4 she would have been fine giving nuanced answers.
Consider her options:
1. Say they recognise sovereignty - real downside if it’s a quirky babe for Donblas
2. Bristle and push back - establishes the principle; downside risk is she looks a little silly
3. Ignore/redefine the question “we’re not here to talk about that. We’re here to talk about X”
I personally would have gone with option 3. But I’m not going to condemn her for going with option 2 and getting called out.
She looks a little silly and gets mocked on Twitter. So f***ng what? Lavrov is an arse and got a cheap shot in. Real world consequence zero.
Sometimes people just need to ignore the trolls.
Unfortunately she isn’t very smart.
That’s a good lesson to learn for a very low cost.
So it’s a win/win?
Biden is playing for Crimea.
Diplomacy is her job. The moment required the upmost care. This is they very essence of her responsibility. Instead of using language with the precision of a surgeon’s knife she bluffed it. Not good.