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politicalbetting.com » Blog Archive » Stephen Dunn looks at the voters who’ll decide GE2015 – tho
politicalbetting.com » Blog Archive » Stephen Dunn looks at the voters who’ll decide GE2015 – those who live in the marginals
The next General Election is a year and a half away, and it’s going to be interesting (as all elections are for gamblers). Labour currently have a consistent polling share which suggests a Labour majority, if they maintain it.
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http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2544565/Photographer-left-bloody-nose-son-Lib-Dem-MP-Mike-Hancock-attacks-press-pack-umbrella-threatens-run-Mini.html
Meanwhile, there's a ComRes looking at which other parties the supporters of each party are disposed to ogle:
http://comresupdates.eu.com/DCJ-24O6F-F21LMD8E11/cr.aspx
A bit of care is needed when reading the graph as it's easy to invert by mistake (well, I did, anyway). For instance, that's 15% of UKIP voters who like the Tories, not 15% of Tories who like UKIP (for whom the figure is 23%). The sparcity of Labour voters who like the LibDems or Tories helps explain why the Labour figure has been so steady.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/personalfinance/consumertips/tax/10591211/Over-100000-parents-face-child-benefits-tax-fine.html
"An estimated 105,000 parents are liable to be hit by a £100 fine next week for missing a deadline to hand back child benefit payments for which they were not eligible – unless they have a particularly good excuse.
Changes in welfare rules saw the benefit withdrawn from 1.1 million middle–class families a year ago. But the onus was put on recipients – any household with one earner on more than £50,000 – to request the payments to stop. Failing to do so means those parents will enter the taxman's labyrinthine system of self–assessment to repay any money they owe."
As far as the map is concerned - it reminds me of the analysis that someone did for the last election on here - that the battlegrounds were predominantly in the METHS (MIddle English Towns and there Hinterlands I believe) - that appears to have not changed dramatically.
If I understand the graph, UKIP is the preferred second choice of both Labour and Conservatives.
Have I understood that correctly?
http://blogs.channel4.com/gary-gibbon-on-politics/rennard-peace-talks-concerns-remain-due-process/27403
The court will be constituted by the Lord Chief Justice, Lord Thomas of Cwmgiedd, the President of the Queen's Bench Division, Sir Brian Leveson, Lady Justice Hallett, Lord Justice Treacy and Mr Justice Burnett. It might be considered odd that the Chief Justice has chosen not to sit with any human rights specialists...
The government doesn't know who these people are so how is it going to fine them? I was never contacted by HMRC, yet fall into this camp. I have now declared my income through the SA system, which works okay once you work out how to do it – they tweak your tax code and tax some of the benefit through a special tax. But had I not, I have little doubt I would have been receiving CB in full today. Many will be happily ignorant and continue to do so, probably without reprisal.
http://www.itv.com/news/story/2014-01-23/arrest-after-fight-outside-lib-dem-mike-hancocks-home/
http://www.edp24.co.uk/news/politics/north_norfolk_mp_norman_lamb_says_he_fears_for_lord_rennard_s_mental_health_1_3236854
http://www.westernmorningnews.co.uk/Rennard-crisis-mishandled-says-Lib-Dem-minister/story-20487990-detail/story.html
Your demographic analysis of the 2015 marginals has enabled me to free up hard disk space by deleting my copies of Lord Ashcroft's marginals polling and the Alan Bown financed Survation constituency polls.
It is good to be able to return to the simplicity of UNS and the certainty of the Sir Roderick endorsed L&N predictions.
Sounds like they are in for a nasty letter - which may or not be a surprise.
It will be very interesting for us all if in fact very few seats actually change hands at GE2015 between the 2 main parties and it comes down to how many seats each takes from the LibDems and others.
So somewhere in the ball park of £180 million of benefit fraud a year if it continues.
Or, if you're being generous, not fraud, but "overpayments due to claimant error". However, only about 0.9% of all DWP benefits were overpaid last year on account of claimant error. By contrast, the rate for higher rate taxpayers on child benefit now works out at nearly 10%.
Will IDS throw the book at them? Somehow I don't think that a £100 fine is going to do the trick.
RE:Lamb thread. I remember a 1K lay, however not anything as frivoulous as the odds - might come in handy one day.
For example:
Didcot is solidly Labour voting but is far too small to make Wantage marginal
Slough on the other hand is too large to be marginal as it can form a seat by itself without having to take in any of the surrounding Tory countryside
Hastings is the right size to be marginal as it balances Labour strength in Hastings itself with Tory countryside (and Rye)
Other towns similar to Hastings include Bedford, Stevenage, Chester, Redditch, Chatham
Trashy story but interesting nonetheless:
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2544516/Billionaire-offered-40million-turn-lesbian-daughter-straight-doubles-offer-20-000-suitors-failed.html
"Billionaire who offered £40million to anyone who could 'turn' his lesbian daughter straight doubles his offer after 20,000 would-be suitors failed"
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/women/womens-politics/10590485/Lord-Rennard-Flat-out-silence-from-Lib-Dem-female-MPs-isnt-good-enough.html
What makes you assume from that that I assume that I know all of the facts? What I do think is that we know enough from the redacted report to agree with the conclusion that Hancock's conduct was totally reprehensible. Surely you're not still disputing that?
As to the availability of the full facts, what is needed is for the full unredacted version of the QC's report to be published. In his statement yesterday (not today) the QC all but openly condemned the decision of Portsmouth Lib-Dem council to release neither a redacted nor unredacted version the day before, when they voted down a motion put forward jointly by the leaders of the Conservative and Labour Groups on the Council. i.e. "The constituent was entitled to know the views I had formed of her evidence, even though the full view has not yet been made public. That is the reason why in my view, it would be better for my full report to be published sooner rather than later. In the meantime, I hope that some responsible journalists will draw attention to one of my conclusions which has been made public in the redacted version, namely my admiration for the way that she addressed her mental health issues in front of me."
20,000 have failed? Has she been on a date every hour of the day since he put up the reward?
In fact, it's fairly disgusting.
And I am entitled to my opinions about those who have exploited and exacerbated this fiasco for their own ends.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b03sgf32/Daily_Politics_23_01_2014/
It's a shame that your work on PR^2 and electoral systems - which is interesting - gets let down by this sort of unintelligent rant.
Charming....
Mind you, there aren't that many female Lib Dem MPs to keep quiet in the first place.....
I wonder why? :Innocent Face:
Do you think any of them owe their position to Lord Rennard?
Dr Christian Jensen is going to try 'the cure':
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/femail/article-2544546/Cure-Im-gay-Embarrassing-Bodies-Dr-Christian-Jessen-tests-anti-homosexual-therapies-new-Channel-4-documentary.html
Not sure if this has been mentioned, but Perry Barr MP Khalid Mahmood has had a kidney transplant.
http://labourlist.org/2014/01/labour-mp-recovering-after-kidney-transplant/
Hope he has a swift recovery.
RE:Kidney transplant - the thought occured to me one time that if I was ever to die and people were to think By-Election, that would be a Great Success.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-25866467
I would ban Vona úr from entering the UK. He's aggressively anti-Roma and anti-Semitic, has organised a paramilitary organisation and is not conducive to the public good either in Hungary or here.
He's English, so any abuse is fair comment
Something no government minster's been too good at since Heseltine.
What I hope he means is that there are two kinds of marginal. In the first, most of the wards are solidly blue or red and the seat is won by whoever's vote comes out. In the other, most of the wards themselves have small majorities and the seat is won on "policy appeal" - whoever can get the "swing" voter into the polling booth.
It is not intuitively clear to me that these two stereotypes should swing (compared to the previous General Election) in the same direction, or, even if they do, with the same force.
In any case - it is the inconsistency. Either Hague stays away as his master's principles dictate, not having a vote here, or Cameron comes up and debates.
Can we infer that if Cameron does turn up for a debate he must not express an opinion during this debate or there will be further outrage ?
You are not allowed to know if it exists.
And if it does, what it says.
And whether it says that they don't have to say if it exists...
UK government ministers, including the Prime Minister, are entitled to have views on the implications of Scottish independence both for Scotland and for the rest of the UK. Indeed, David Cameron has expressed them on many occasions already. That doesn't mean that he needs to debate with Alex Salmond.
We have to ask ourselves the question: why does Alex Salmond so desperately want to debate with David Cameron rather than Danny Alexander or Alistair Darling? The answers are obvious really.
One can reverse that - why does Mr Cameron desperately want to avoid debate and send his LD penal battalions instead? Obviously it's a bit of a Mexican standoff.
And, incidentally, it was Cameron who promised a Respect agenda in the first place.
It might be more interesting to consider that Mr C's decision is not risk-free, given that (if I recall rightly) polling on both sides of the border and both sides of the question in Scotland shows a majority desire to see such a debate. I suppose his calculation is that if there is a Yes, he's got much bigger worries than being seen not to have strained "every fibre of his being" as I recall him promising a year ago in Edinburgh (appropriately enough, just before the porridge factory photo-op). If there is a No, then he's got nothing to worry about.
I'm looking at new business in South Korea, I wonder if there are any cultural, business, ethical or other customs or idiosyncrasies that it would help me to be aware of. I do a bit in Japan, but no other Asian country.
Thanks in advance for any help.
While Scotland remains part of the UK, he is a peer to the leaders of the regional governments in Wales and Northern Ireland and - arguably, de facto, if not de jure - the Mayor of London. They all should be viewed as having equivalent rank to senior Cabinet Ministers.
If he was insisting on debating Carmichael rather than Alexander he might have a point. To insist on debating Cameron is mere self-aggrandisement.
Posh, check
(very) English, check
Jester, check
wet himself?
It is all so gloriously transparent.....Salmond is losing the argument and this is a desperate gambit.....
"I genuinely believe that some of the actors in this drama are psychologically damaged individuals, wrapped up in their pointless furies, unable to see the forest for the trees, determined to exact revenge — and destroy an individual — for the slightest of slights, consumed as they are by an absurd ideology. And in response, the party behaves without a shred of moral fibre or principle. Never ever vote for these people. They’ll take it as a come-on."
http://www.spectator.co.uk/columnists/rod-liddle/9121161/rod-liddle-why-didnt-bridget-harris-just-slap-lord-rennard/
(It's also an accurate statement of fact...)
Stick to electoral reform and PR^2, rather than insulting women.
When grouting goes wrong:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-london-25862543
I can just imagine the people on the surface: "Hmmm, this void seems larger than we expected. Let's just pump more in..." ;-)
Really? Yet they're roughly the same population size. Clearly London is doing something right and Scotland is doing something wrong. Scots are clearly missing a trick here. If I was in charge of Scotland I'd copy whatever London is doing and triple GDP.
One way Korean males like to cement their friendship is to get totally pissed together. Not sure how much this applies to foreigners!
Thirty percent of Koreans are Christians, evangelised by American missionaries. They mostly pray for themselves and their families, not others.
They don't like the Japanese but are willing to do business with them, especially if it brings forward the day of Korean superiority.
If you should one day be invited to the home of a boss, his wife is likely to be expected to remain in the kitchen.
We do have some great life sciences companies, I agree. So do the Germans. Where they beat us hands down is that they also have them in loads of other areas too. It was a real eye opener going into companies and seeing how they work close up.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/france/10593048/French-holiday-home-alert-after-burglaries-rocket-by-18-per-cent.html