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Polling matters – politicalbetting.com
Polling matters – politicalbetting.com
Looking at the regular Smarkets next poll lead market I have to say that given the political landscape and increasing food, mortgages, and energy bills then the Tory polling is likely to remain in the toilet even though I’m expecting a modest Sunak polling boost simply because he’s not Liz Truss nor Boris Johnson.
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Boris Johnson was begging for votes over the weekend in a “demeaning” attempt to return to Downing Street, according to Sir Iain Duncan Smith.
He said that Johnson had returned from his Caribbean holiday expecting at least 150 MPs to back him. “Boris was completely unexpectedly having to do this. He made no plans. He had no team,” said Duncan Smith.
He told LBC that Johnson found himself “struggling and begging people for votes. That was demeaning, really.”
https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/demeaned-boris-johnson-was-begging-for-votes-says-senior-tory-7vf70jft2
That’s our bloody national debt that he’s ramped up, just so he can gain some stupid imaginary brexit points.
And now the country must pay for his idiocy, with higher mortgage rates, tax increases, and spending cuts?
I don’t buy the fiscally dry, sound money persona he’s trying to portray. It was him spaffing cash up the wall that is the primary reason we’re now in one hell of a fiscal mess.
Why should we suffer for his sins?
I’m amazed that the otherwise sensible, sound money PB tories are falling for his guff.
The demise of Boris Johnson through this has been wonderful.
He has been made to look a complete fool.
For all who care for justice, or think there's something in karma, it has been glorious to behold.
The opportunity of the UK being a uniquely dynamic and innovative country, passed up by the MPs over the heads of the party membership, in favour of tax-rising, big-spending, globalist, authoritarian manegerialism, run by someone with no empathy for the average person.
His selection of Foreign Secretary will be a very important choice.
Hopefully, the new PM can be a lot more unequivocal in his support, than he was over the summer.
In 1992 the Tories lost their reputation and nothing from 1992-1997 stopped them being thrown out in a landslide, despite having a fairly decent team trying to repair things.
Do things happen faster now? It it thinkable that in two years the Tories do the impossible and prevent a Labour victory. The 1990s feel like a vanished age now.
Rishi could, and should, construct a team, centrist and moderate, that appears more capable than Labour's. In particular the shadow CoE is not formidable in the sense that Brown or Darling were. This is a weakness.
Results other than a Labour led government next time could become thinkable. Bet accordingly.
It's fantasy pure and simple.
The Conservatives will lose the next General Election heavily. You don't come back from a polling sea-change like this, compounded by a dire economic outlook compared to the aforementioned 1992-7.
Anyone taking your advice and betting accordingly is throwing away their money.
Not everyone is as continent as Goderich (I think) who famously left more in the Treasury when he left than was there when he arrived.
People were flailing around looking to deal with an unproblematic of unknown magnitude. He was being criticised for being less generous than X or Y, or for not doing something that Germany or Italy had done. So of course he benchmarked. It’s just a human reaction to incentives.
I hadn't fully appreciated their love for Boris and their sense of embittered rage at what has happened. For some reason, probably partly racist, they have it in for Rishi as the architect of Boris Johnson's downfall.
Of course, the real architect of Boris Johnson's downfall was Boris Johnson. A deeply, painfully, flawed individual who has got his comeuppance.
But I don't see the red wall warming to Rishi I'm afraid. They won't come back to vote for him.
So I think Labour leads in the 20%+ range to start with, perhaps possibly a 15%. And then as things start to bite through the winter, Labour will regularly be back up to 25%+
They are going to win a landslide. Nothing now will change it.
No party comes back from this polling debacle. Never has. Never will. Period.
They blew it. Lost the confidence of the British people.
If you want to bet on a Conservative Party victory of any sort you need to wait 15 years.
https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/india-uk-virtual-summit-may-2021-roadmap-2030-for-a-comprehensive-strategic-partnership/2030-roadmap-for-india-uk-future-relations
Sounds good but looks like a lot of words for something that's actually quite thin on substance, and Modi seems more interested in Britain-bashing than making progress on it.
In so far as he's interested in anything it's making migration much easier into the UK, and that's likely to be contentious, so I don't expect this deal to go very far.
They are running around in bewildered shock grasping at any wild straw they can find.
In Kazakhstan, Russia's war did more for the Kazakh language promotion than 30 years of the Kazakh government's attempts did. The youth especially is switching to Kazakh whenever they can. Non-ethnic Kazakhs from Kazakhstan are also more interested in Kazakh than before.
https://mobile.twitter.com/tkassenova/status/1580987112458842112
The growth of national identities within the Russian empire is probably not what Putin planned for with his attempt to impose Russian identity on Ukraine by invasion.
Have you read his speech?
He's a traditional conservative who's thought intelligently about how best the free market can be set up to deliver prosperity in the 21st C:
https://www.gov.uk/government/speeches/chancellor-rishi-sunaks-mais-lecture-2022
Scotland stays SNP.
And before we start, the boundary review tips what was a majority of 80 to 100-110.
Now don’t get me wrong, it’s increasingly hard to see how Sunak wins a majority or is even largest party. But do we really think the map is set up for Starmer to win “a landslide”? How? I don’t think many of believe Labour will carry a 25 point poll lead on the day.
As for the red wall, it won't come back to Rishi. In fact it could be even worse for him than Liz Truss.
Labour will do relatively well in Scotland.
Labour victory is nailed on. Landslide probable.
You may lament it but it's a fact.
However, I strongly suspect the Right are soon going to begin agitating. I wouldn't be surprised to see the return of Nigel Farage to the political fray and others of his type garnering significant support, especially in the red wall seats.
It's just another factor about the Conservative Party problems for the next GE. Sunak's cabinet may look inclusive after today but the discontent from the right is only going to grow. They bet on Liz Truss, who was useless, and they have lost big time through all of this. But they're not going away.
Heck, it's taken less than 12 hours for right-wingers on here to start venting: taxes, Ukraine, spending, authoritarianism, managerialism etc etc.
There is fury on the right and, disappointingly, it's already breaking out.
Does Ukraine policy move votes much one war or the other? Dunno.
It is why, despite people like Putin'sGuy and Dura_Ace, we should continue to highlight the evils that Russia is doing - and the threats a state that can do such things poses to us and the world. Ukraine is fighting this war for us - instead of NATO protecting them, they are protecting NATO.
When we see his first cabinet, quickly followed by the budget, we will get a better idea. It will be interesting to see whether reality changes the visions, or if they remain fixed.
I disagree with your assessment. The polling move was so fast and violent that it strikes me as shallow. A lot of it was Tories moving to don’t know although there was an unusual level of direct Tory to Labour switching which I would interpret as a desire to kick the Tories where it hurts.
My guess is as things stabilise then politics will normalise and people will return to the Tories. That doesn’t mean the Tories will win - I think that’s unlikely - but in my view the polls are more likely to return to a sustainable 10-15% Labour lead and then close further as the election sharpens the focus. Overall result between Labour largest party and small majority, but most likely a Labour government from mid 2024 onwards.
Of course this assumes that the Tories manage to deliver a drama free couple of years of vaguely competent government
The tories are in for a shellacking next time and will then be out of power for at least a decade.
You're calling the world's bankers, financiers, investors "globalist" - you missed off the inevitable word "elite". Its classic pig-headed English exceptionalism. Essentially, "don't you know who we are?"
They do know who we are. And that's why Truss lasted 50 days in office. "Over the heads of the party membership" - yes, we should have gone back to the market and the IMF and said "look here, you need to do what we say because the Tory Party membership demand it."
One of your more bonkers posts, unless it was hugely high sarcasm which flew over my head...
On the plus side for the Tories they have a big seat advantage from 2019. Labour needs an enormous swing to get to a minority position.
On the negative side, the Tories have done (and have been seen to have done) unprecedented damage, remain seriously split and a confident, effective opposition have been successfully setting the agenda since the pandemic.
It will be interesting too see what happens.
He's a serious guy for serious times and I wish him well.
Post after post after post saying what the poster wants to happen - but then "dressed up" as a "prediction".
The only "predictions" worth reading are when someone posts one that is contrary to what they personally want to happen.
Regular readers can of course tell very easily which is which.
Liz Truss’s budget was cackhanded political management of some relatively minor tax changes (rolling back to pre Sunak’s round of increases) plus the iconic 45p rate.
Far more serious for the Tories is the fact that the interest rate moves - which were happening anyway - have been successfully pinned on them. Unfair, but them’s the breaks. If they govern sensibly then they will win some voters back. But probably not enough.
It isn't exactly a militarily responsive system, which might explain why the targets are mostly civilian and fixed infrastructure.
"Due to the complexity of interactions between the various inputs for the flight path and course adjustment, each missile’s flight path requires customised, individual planning. According to one of the members of the GVC team who agreed to answer questions on condition of anonymity, the pre-flight planning requires simulation of the complete flight path from launch site to target. The resulting flight path plan as well as the algorithm for course adjustments based on various inputs is loaded by the programmers onto a ruggedized memory stick, which is then passed on to the launch location and inserted into the missile."
https://www.bellingcat.com/news/uk-and-europe/2022/10/24/the-remote-control-killers-behind-russias-cruise-missile-strikes-on-ukraine/
I wonder how this compares to our (or the US's) planning and control system for cruise and ballistic missiles?
1. The "where's our money" voters. They voted for Brexit and then Boris because they live in a shit town with no opportunities. They believed the guff about money for the NHS and then levelling up and have been increasingly appalled to find they were sold a ticket to El Dorado. Heading back to Labour at high speed
2. The "Boris or Bust" voters. 6 years of Stockholm Syndrome have them genuinely believing that only Boris and Brexit will bring the things they want. Will vote for REFUK.
3. The "Waste of Time" voters who never vote usually. They voted for the first time in ages/ever for Brexit, skipped 2017 and then voted Tory in 2019 to Get Brexit Done. They are gone, back into the do not vote tally.
Any way you look at it, almost all the 2019 Tory surge vote is gone. I believed that Sunak honestly did want to level up. But there is not only no money for that now, he will be forced to level these areas down...
Up-thread it was commented that Biden is the only one who matters. This is not so. Biden does not operate in a vacuum. In a European war it’s of paramount importance that the European powers continue to strongly push an interventionist narrative, if they want the US president to have the political space to continue with direct or indirect interventionism.
Should the West blink now we invite far more risk, economic damage and death in the future.
I respectively disagree with your certainty about a labour victory, even landslide, in 24 not least because it is a long time away and while the conservatives have trashed their brand Starmer has not as yet sealed a deal and of course the consequences of these last few weeks is that he will be restricted in his ability to spend and will need the OBR on side
I am not saying you are wrong but nothing in politics is as certain as you are suggesting and as an aside the 5 live business news this morning confirmed Rishi has been welcomed by the markets, interest rates are dropping to pre the Truss period and UK building societies are reducing their mortgages rates
Time will tell but for me the end of the Johnson era is a joy and in Rishi we have a decent and honest PM and from an Asian heritage is just wonderful
I am not the only conservative who is encouraged by these events and as Johnson is over can now freely support the party going forward for better or worse and at least Starmer has a whole new opponent to deal with
Can anyone remember when a minor Cabinet re-shuffle was the event of the year?
‘He ran the wisest and most honest of administrations, having never transacted one rash thing: and what is more marvellous, having left as much money in the Treasury as he found in it.’
Censure by the Privileges Committee, a massive recall petition, and then either he slinks away, or goes down in a historic by-election defeat and is expunged from our politics for ever more.
I actually think this scenario is in the Conservatives’ best interests, as well as catharsis for our long-suffering country, since having Johnson so brutally dispatched from our politics will help Sunak pull off their usual trick of projecting his administration as “new” and blaming our ills on the disreputable scoundrels who governed before….
OSINT is becoming very powerful.
https://twitter.com/FraserNelson/status/1584782416169902082?t=GbPdLQ8qMw_M78WrepdmFA&s=19
This is the point I have been making about Labour - Starmer is no Blair, the prospective Labour front bench is critically weak compared to the 1990s, and they haven’t done anything like the leg work in terms of policies, promises, media presentation or organisation that Labour put in during the runup to 1997.
We can all see that the country faces some huge issues - health, education, social care - and that our national finances are desperately in need of significant reconstructing. Yet from Labour (so far), answers come there none….
Benchmarking is NOT seeing what others are doing and being "more generous".
In next GE polling, the Tory polling average is steadily eroded to the mid 30s, and *then* has its catastrophic snap, to the low twenties. Labour is the direct beneficiary throughout. That's very different.
But maybe it is more like 1992? Well, no. Notwithstanding the polling failings, Margaret Thatcher's administration claws back 20%+ Labour polling leads to 10-15%, and John Major achieved crossover more or less immediately. There is a drift back to the conservatives over time, the polling lead changing hands many times, and the key factor of the LDs rising from their single digit nadir to 18% on election day, with Labour failing to convince.
Again, this is a very different situation.
Boundary changes help the Tories, and starting positions differ - but this looks more like a 1997 with far less runway for recovery from the catastrophe, than a 1992-style change the leader, get a bounce, split the left.
The situation would be very different if Russia was under attack in some way. But the reality is that it is actually attacking another country and lots of its men are fleeing rather than fighting. It is reasonable to assume from the circumstantial evidence available that many more would do the same thing if they had the resources to do so.
So maybe this great reserve of patriotism and willingness to undergo hardship is not quite as deep as we thought it was and no doubt this factors in to western calculations about the pursuit of this war.
In terms of Ukraine, I am aware as anyone that its government is peddling propoganda but it does seem to be quite effective and Russia is not able to counter the accusations that it's soldiers are raping and torturing women, murdering civilians, abducting children, and bombing childrens playgrounds and other civilian infrastructure with cruise missiles. Enthusiasm to pursue a war of defence and survival will inevitably be higher than enthusiasm to pursue a war of aggression against another state.
It seems like Russia has an uphill struggle to persuade its population of the merits of this war, Ukrainians are not carrying out terrorist attacks in the way that the Chechens perhaps once were. Russia is going to need to do better on the propoganda front, along with other fronts.
It received little attention at the time because of Ukraine but it is as clear headed, coherent and intelligent analysis of both the weaknesses of the UK economy and the way to fix them as I have read from any politician ever. Capital, people, ideas. The need to save and invest, the need for governments to be facilitative rather than leading the way, the importance of research and taking advantage of our great Universities.
If these are his targets as PM and if he does not get blown off course by the costs of the gas subsidy program I think that is as good a policy for government as we have seen for a long, long time.
BoZo has done nothing to dispel it thus far.
Bit like Trump and Pence.
Looking at Tory share, 2019 look much more comparable.
Not saying there'll be a recovery for the Tories like that, I doubt there will be personally, but it's absolutely possible and has happened before.
*before* resignation, not *back* resignation. (Predictive text)
I wonder if Truss had been arguing for those in cabinet and he had been resisting even while she was FS?
As far as the Russian Federation is concerned Russia is under attack and has been for decades. The perception is that Ukraine is part of Russia and it's being pulled away and dismembered by the US/NATO/EU/Strictly Come Dancing judges.
You can argue that's all paranoid delusion and anti-democratic revanchism. And you might be right but that's reality of how things are viewed in Russian politics and society.
If we need to expand the Defence budget (not that I am convinced that we do) there needs to be a careful review of what capabilities that we need. What has worked well in Ukraine, and what hasn't? What naval and air capability is needed? Where will our next war be?
There is a disconnect between reality and the hardcore Tory membership. They won't be happy under Rishi, the headbanger wing of Tory MPs won't be happy, and like the lunatics who were photographed behind John Redwood at his leadership bid launch, these crazies will sit there reminding voters why the Tories need to be removed from office.
Some of us speculated over the summer, that the hyperbolic language coming from the Sunak camp gave the suggestion that they would not want to work with Truss, and so it came to pass. What we didn’t expect, was the speed at which the Sunak supporters, in the Parliamentary party and the media, sabotaged the Truss government, in order to steal that crown for themselves. The average member will be furious today, at the way these events played out.
Parliament was deadlocked, Leavers and Remainers were sick and tired of Brexit jamming everything. Nothing comparable about today's situation. In that sense 1992 (Tory economic incompetence) is much more similar.
Never underestimate the way that the electorate will punish perceived economic mismanagement. Each of 1970, 1974, 1979, 1997 and 2010 is an example of that.
The only way we can make a difference to the most stubborn and difficult problems is to focus; to decide where our efforts can have the biggest impact and relentlessly pursue those few chosen goals with all the energy and resources at our disposal. By trying to deliver everything we achieve nothing.
So in accelerating growth, I have three priorities. Priorities that I believe will foster a new culture of enterprise and deliver a higher growth rate. The first is to encourage greater levels of capital investment by our businesses. Second, we need to improve the technical skills of the tens of millions of people already in work. And third, we want to make this the most innovative economy in the world by driving up business investment in research and development.
The biggest problem for him is what he can do, with any sort of positive outcome, in current circumstances and with just two years.
That's not really the case now. Having a leader who is both honest and sane will help. But the big thing wrong for the government is that lots of voters are objectively broke and many more feel broke. And there's not a lot that can be done to win them back.
I am quite a Russophile. It is a great country that I am keen to visit again, but boy is its dark side very dark. Until they come to terms with the evils that they have done, it will be hard to appreciate the glories. Russia needs to begin to decolonise its mind. Revisionist history and decolonisation of its curriculum is way overdue.
Its laughable. You and I both know the correct price of any item is what someone is willing to pay for it. We can't just say "you will buy our debt at the price we say" and they go "yes sir".
I expect a modest Sunak bounce and for the Tories to poll 30% or so by the end of November.
The reason is simple - contrary to what many people think, most Con members aren't actually that ideological.
https://skwawkbox.org/2022/08/22/labour-party-bankrupt-within-2-years-on-current-financial-course/
1. Ukraine crisis/COL over, giving him ability to say he fixed it (rightly or wrongly); coupled with
2. His narrative from this leadership contest essentially being “I told you so” will net him kudos;
3. Starmer fails to seal the deal/runs a bad campaign;
4. The Tories run a tight ship and there’s no further resignations, cabinet dramas or significant revolts (this is the one that seems very difficult to imagine).
The key difference between now and 1997 is that I and I’m sure many others see Labour as our only alternative because they seem decent and competent and ready to lead a stable government that will make fairer decisions - but there is not a groundswell of enthusiasm for a Labour government. They lead partly by default because the Tory government has been so shockingly bad. Now it may continue to be bad and hand them the keys to Number 10 easily, but it is at least plausible that they get some of their act together, events help them, and they present more of a challenge. The question then is where those voters eventually fall.
Learning from other countries, with a view to saying "I spent more than them, aren't I great" - is not.
We'll have to see what happens in the future now, but we shouldn't say that just because something is British it is better, or because something cost us more it is better either.
If RS can form an old fashioned looking cabinet of moderate competents attention will turn to weaknesses in the Labour front bench. They are OK but not stellar. Compared with Tories recently Labour look like Mandela, Obama and Roy Jenkins. but from today they might not.
Labour will probably lead the next government, but the markets currently say it probably won't be with a clear majority. Don't bet the farm. It isn't free money.
The MoD needs flint eyed and decisive management not a chubby, thick as fuck, ex-Jock Guard who has gone native.
*Mossad having form in this area - see also the Iranian centrifuges
I think Penny has been the bigger fool - yes she'll get a good job, but she could have got 'the' job, by co-opting Boris and giving him something.
It is of course obvious that the US aid effort is much greater than that of any other country (unless you look at it in relative terms, in which case that would Poland and the Baltic states), but to cast it as "Biden's war" is pitiful stuff.
*That* is why we now have incoming PM Sunak. Because the markets do not see a "uniquely dynamic and innovative" UK. When you put money into something you do basic due diligence. And the UK is heavily indebted, with poor public services and higher inequality than many of its rivals, with trade barriers to much of the world and an economy growing the slowest of our competitor nations.
Pretending that none of this is true, that the markets are wrong and 85 year-old Tory members are right is a flight of fantasy. Literal exceptionalism where the forrin should know their place and do what the English tell them like in the good old days. "Buy our debt when we tell you at the price we set" FFS
Well that Period. is wrong. Looking at share not lead as is advisable, 2019 was a comparable polling debacle and the Tories came back from that to increase their majority.
Will that happen again? No, probably not. Is there precedent though? Yes, there is.
Luck
Energy price falls
Resolve the mortgage interest rate crisis fairly quickly.
https://twitter.com/business/status/1584701296724115456?t=32m5nKXu4W5e8ExFvw08Kw&s=19
Not that global warming is a good thing, but this is an unseasonably mild autumn.
As for the "membership" and their rumours - a large proportion of them are either greedy or suffering from age-related problems or they would have realised that Truss was incapable of doing the job. She never should been made PM
They didn't during Furlough and the GFC, we had the Bank printing money to pay for it instead. This time, while the Treasury was announcing money for energy bills, the Bank decided now was a good time to not just stop but actively reverse the money printing.
The Bank has helped facilitate a mentality in the past 15 years that its the "lender of last resort" for fixing whatever problem has hit the UK in general. That was never meant to be its responsibility.