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politicalbetting.com » Blog Archive » The scene is set for a dramatic and unpredictable election
politicalbetting.com » Blog Archive » The scene is set for a dramatic and unpredictable election day on Thursday
And from the main pollsters, the established firms that have been commissioned to carry out regular voting intention surveys at least once since at least GE2010, there is only one big message when looking at Ukip – the party is on a roll.
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UKiP if you want to - but I can't sleep.
Watching cricket yesterday in the company of several other "old gits" the chat turned to politics, and the main concern was that there would be a low turn-out; one of the chatters is a regulat poll-clerk and shuddered at the thought of as boring a day as the Police Commssioner elections. One other chatter announced his intention to vote UKIP as he wanted "to make the conservatives think, and would never vote Labour".
How will all this pan out? It's not at all clear. All three major parties could have secret hopes for a much better night than expected and all three could have secret fears that they might massively underperform expectations.
Labour's task is simple: to win as many seats as possible. Would the Conservatives be better off doing relatively well in these elections or doing badly, thus making the UKIP defectors think about the consequences of their actions? I'm not at all sure what the correct answer to that is.
The Conservatives say a surge in support for Nigel Farage’s Eurosceptic party will merely help the pro-EU Ed Miliband.
They hope to quell the turmoil in their own ranks by stressing a ‘Vote Farage, get Miliband’ message to counter the growing support for UKIP, who are likely to win more votes than the Liberal Democrats.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2316821/Vote-Farage-Labour-PM-warns-waverers-As-clowns-attack-backfires-ditch-bid-head-UKIP-threat.html#ixzz2RvQmOKbY
On topic, I suspect the vote shares will be more dramatic than the headline gains / losses. UKIP will poll well - maybe as high as 20% due to differential turnout - but because they take votes from all sides (admittedly not equally), because a large number of seats are Con / LD wards, and because UKIP and Labour's 'on the ground' operations in these places is too limited to enable a breakthrough, UKIP will rack up plenty of seconds and close thirds but not that many firsts.
Labour will have a mixed bag, collecting a decent number of net seats and making council gains but in other parts of the country may well go backwards or at best - as in Eastleigh - nowhere. Their supporters will point out that the gains are where the marginal are; their opponents will say that it's a largely consequence-free mid-term protest vote that would not be replicated at a general election. Both will have a point.
The Lib Dems will perform similarly, scoring a relatively decent national equivalent share due to many of these elections being in places of reasonable LD strength, unless the models are very clever and assign different swings to different sorts of seat. It will flatter their true national vote share picture but provide a fair picture as to how their parliamentary seat score is likely to hold up.
For the Tories, there'll probably be the largest vote share drop but again, it won't impact too heavily on the seat total and they'll end the night with comfortably the largest number of votes, councillors and councils.
Something then for everyone, and the value in the votes will be judging how sticky the protests are. To my mind, one of the important developments in the pattern of the vote shares is that Labour is not the chosen party of protest on a wide scale. They have solidly kept the 10% that shifted from the Lib Dems early on (will these naturally oppositionist votes shift back from a party of government?), but have not picked up much else and it's UKIP that those disillusioned with the government are turning to.
There are two other factors which receive very little attention in the media. Both the Conservatives and the Lib Dems go into these elections having lost >1/3 of their activists since 2009. In some areas the losses are over 1/2. The remaining Conservative activists also contain a large number who intend to send Cameron a purple message. If Cameron keeps losses to circa 300 he should count himself lucky.
Fraser Nelson: "Coup for No 10 as The Economist’s US editor Chris Lockwood joins the Policy Unit, 1 of the brightest + most insightful people in journalism"
You are going to be a very unhappy bunny if these 'chums' actually prove good at their jobs....
"The Conservatives have failed their way to a cannier election strategy, one that plays to voters’ animal dreads, not their non-existent capacity for gratitude."
http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/66312e88-b0b8-11e2-80f9-00144feabdc0.html#axzz2RtjDKSqN
My tentative view, not backed up by evidence, is that it's more impressive if the VI changes and the underlying questions don't. Seems odd? No, what this shows is that you've got much the same mix of people and their voting intention has changed. If everything moves in lock-step without an apparent reason why the electorate suddenly thinks a party is much better across the board, then you've probably just got a sample a bit more favourable to them. (Thus I'd be more ready to believe Labour's current lead is 7 than 9.)
Obviously if the improvement in secondaries is sustained over several polls, then it's showing a real improvement, which will help underpin VI. But that's quite rare - the secondaries have been broadly stable over time for yonks.
There was a good summary of Labour targets on Labourlist: http://labourlist.org/2013/04/local-elections-2013-the-councils-labour-should-watch/
Most councils across the east and south only have one or two Labour councillors. Bucks, Dorset and Cornwall have none. One nation will be tested.
And some councils have only been held twice by the Conservatives (1970s and 2009). Labour will want these back.
Derbys
Lancs
Staffs
Notts
Northants
Strong Labour, strong Ukip and weak Lib Dems would mean large losses for the Tories. But it's possible the opposite could happen...
1 polling card. That is all.
UKIP are clearly entering these elections on a high. Will it be high enough to push the Lib Dems into 4th? I suspect it might. At the last two sets of elections since 2010 the Lib Dems have lost about 1/3 of their existing seats. If they do anything like as badly as that in these areas, which are really important to them, there will be trouble.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-2316898/The-big-freeze-250-years-Experts-say-Suns-activity-wanes-200-years--cooling-period-2040.html
It comes as Conservative bosses privately predicted losses of between 600 and 800 seats this week. The poll puts David Cameron’s party on 30 per cent. Meanwhile Labour’s support has dropped below 40 per cent to 39 for the first time in two years.
Read more: http://www.thesun.co.uk/sol/homepage/news/politics/4908349/UKIP-hit-14-high-as-Tories-fear-council-election-meltdown.html#ixzz2RvWHMDCI
http://www.thetimes.co.uk/tto/opinion/columnists/article3752273.ece
"In that sense voters’ political judgments are like the human judgments we make all the time: how someone speaks to us matters just as much as what they say. That is where Mr Miliband is weak. For example, a recent YouGov survey found that 40 per cent thought Mr Cameron would be “tough and decisive in a crisis” but only 21 per cent thought that of Mr Miliband. Yesterday’s radio interview will have done nothing to improve those numbers. The Labour leader sounded shrill"
Clearly the nose job did not work.
UKIP election candidate pictured giving Nazi salute and wielding knife
30 Apr 2013 00:00
The Facebook photos are another blow for party leader Nigel Farage ahead of Thursday’s local elections
http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/ukip-candidate-pictured-giving-nazi-1860602#ixzz2RvX4FHsX
Farage on R4 - Humphries challenging his 'we haven't had time to check them' with 'you're running too many then'.....
"SNP veterans and SSP's Fox criticise indy plans for sterling"
http://www.heraldscotland.com/news/home-news/snp-veterans-and-ssps-fox-criticise-indy-plans-for-sterling.1367250697
"Winter is coming"
http://d25d2506sfb94s.cloudfront.net/cumulus_uploads/document/nxf04583t2/YG-Archives-Pol-Trackers-VotingTrends-290413.pdf
http://www.ine.es/en/prensa/cntr0113a_en.pdf
"I am sure Labour got a couple of 38%s from YouGov last week."
Do you think a Sun reader would notice? They wouldn't even know who UKIP was unless she had big tits.
If we are looking to come out of the problems this time next year, and of course the year after, then school histories will be academic (!).
Of course in the complete lefty nightmare scenario, the narrative might emerge that it is _only_ poshos from good schools who can run the country at which point the Lab party might have to make more of their public school fops.
F1: Kaltenborn confirms she's keeping a close eye on Gutierrez:
http://www.espn.co.uk/sauber/motorsport/story/106864.html
Frankly, excepting Bianchi, all the newcomers this season have been poor. Bottas and Gutierrez were tipped for great things, and whilst their cars aren't exactly fantastic they've been totally outdriven by their team mates.
I hope the lefties keep shooting themselves in the foot by showing contempt for Sun readers.
Otherwise, nothing. Yet anyway!
Apart, of course, from polling cards for self and wife.
Not even any posters locally, apart from someone who ALWAYS has a UKIP poster in his shop window.
Oh so that's how it works?
"The economy is picking up now off it's [sic] own bat".
apologies because it's a low device but in the words of Mr Pork:
"chortle"
Not just problems for Ukip.
I'm going to spend the brief summer we have on Thursday painting the garden fence.
http://politicalbetting.blogspot.co.uk/2013/04/2013-early-season-review.html
If we had a write-in option you could vote Morris Dancer.
The nation will be enjoying a rather diverse and interesting variety of fruitcake come Friday morning. It will add admirably to the gaiety of the nation all the way to May 2015 !!
"I hope the lefties keep shooting themselves in the foot by showing contempt for Sun readers"
Why make a virtue out of rubbing shoulders with morons? Labour's job will be done when educational standards have risen to a level that no one would ever entertain reading such unrewarding trash again.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-22341867
"Male prisoners in England and Wales must work harder for privileges such as TVs in cells, the government has said."
"Officials are still working on possible changes to the privilege scheme for female prisoners."
Here's a wild and crazy idea: make it the same for both genders.
Any way, its good to know that Labour hold a big chunk of the electorate in such contempt. I feel the same way about Guardian readers.
My ethical portfolio rules out anything with THAT man's involvement
“the economy is recovering despite the inaction of the government”
And this after saying that the economy is getting better “off its own bat”. Well make up your mind. Do you want the govt to be inactive and let the economy recover on its own or do you want it not to be inactive and manage the recovery?
Look, it’s fine to have differences of opinion about optimal government behaviour and here is ours. My view is that the govt has made an effort to create an environment whereby private enterprise can if not flourish then at least be presented with as few impediments as possible to innovate, create, build. The govt also had a difficult line to tread because if the right noises weren’t made early and consistently to the markets, then our borrowing costs could easily have sky-rocketed (there is no god-given right why the UK should have such low borrowing costs – many people forget that). Hence in my view the govt has done plenty. Your view is that the government should have done more – build roads, houses, (borrow?), more legislation about this or that, etc.
But what it all comes down to, and it usually does, is the difference between those who think the government should play an ever bigger or an ever smaller part in our lives. I think the latter, it sounds like you think the former.
But he makes a common error here in his underlying assumption of north is Labour, south is Conservative and therefore UKIP gains in the north hurt Labour.
The parts of the north (and north midlands) where UKIP will do best are among lower middle and skilled wwc voters in the medium sized towns and industrial sprawls.
They are 'populist' voters - populist on economics, populist on social policy, very populist on immigration.
These are not 'fashionable' voters and places but they are the ones which the Conservatives need to hoover up if they are to win power. And this will be ever more so as the public sector middle classes continue to drift left politically and non-white electorate increase.
In 2010 the Conservatives got just enough of these voters (already many were voting for 'rightist' parties) to put Cameron into Downing Street, partly through the aid of Gordon Brown's abuse of Mrs Duffy. But they weren't impressed by the Conservatives, and Cameroons especially, in 2010 and they're even less so now.
If UKIP are able to attract these voters then EdM will win in 2015 by default.
Find out what works: use theory, evidence from other countries, and trials in different prisons here. Then do it.
There may be no votes in prison reform but two hundred years from now, Chris Grayling's portrait might grace the five pound note.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2013/apr/28/german-role-euro-crisis-disaster
The comments seem dramatically unimpressed.
And why is SeanT getting so orgasmic about the price of his Camden Town flat?
To realise any gain he would have to sell it and move elsewhere which would mean buying another place. As the next place - a Primrose Hill house perhaps - would have gone up in price even more he will have lost out financially.
Anyway isn't SeanT meant to have millions and millions in the bank now from his book deals ?
A strong poll for UKIP will have a national impact. In my brief electoral address, I've uged voters this time to 'Think BIG, vote UKIP'.
I forecast that the good showing from UKIP this year and next will end-play Miliband into offering a referendum on the EU in his 2015 party manifesto.
UKIP's problem will be winning an in-out referendum. I really can't see enough semi-interested voters to want to leave the EU when they are faced with the scare-mongering that they'll receive.
Ninety-five percent Confidence-Intervals are attributable to samples, not polls. Just because one poll may fit-the-norm regarding VI does not imply that subsidiary questions will do also.
It's not complex: It is a reflection of random-sampling. Get-it now...?
LibDem will be sniggering into their beards as they recall the massive effort deployed by the right wing press in the immediate afterglow of Cleggmania that has know been diverted Ukip's way
Sadly for the kippers they ain't seen nothing yet - There will few more powerful and entertaining sights than the coming two years of nazi saluting, loony, fruitcake and men in white coat stories that will grace our breakfast sideboards.
"Will the last person leaving the country please turn Farage off !!"
Hey ho Kenders, old fruit(cake).
What PBers are keen to know is where you actually stand in the great Ukip fruitcake spectrum ?
Are you a full bodied (I used that phrase advisedly) Christmas cake - sugar coating the policies or are you a lighter tea(party) loaf cake. Perhaps you incline to those fruitcakes with the cherry on the top or does your fancy tend to the fruitcake full of nuts ??
PB awaits your verdict !!
Do they have a Department of Hydroponics ?
Indeed so Nashers.
The closer Ukip nears to the levers of power or indeed to influencing who pulls the levers then the far greater scrutiny the kippers will find themselves under.
Every half baked, barely baked, under cooked policy or individual that crosses the nations radar will be pulled to shreds regardless of the truth of the story.
Does the right wing press want a Leveson plus majority Labour government - not on your nelly !!
Oh you’re coming from _that_ side of the fence. The one in the next garden but two!
Well in _that_ case I don’t disagree with your prescription at all. But timing is everything – it would be a braver man than GO who decided on all those things right now. Do I think he wants to? Hmm, I would say in a quiet moment absolutely but our current political paradigm will make it difficult if not impossible to do so – a bit like EdM found out about the “B” word yesterday on his intereview. Some things the great British public will need getting used to. Small state, individual responsibility, what’s not to like....but I think we need to take baby steps as UK won’t have it any other way. One thing is for sure, if GO _may_ head in that direction, UKIP can’t, Labour won’t and the LD’s aren’t yet part of the argument. So pragmatically, in a let’s-vote-for-the-least-worst option, the Cons are the party for you.
Q.6 Do you agree or disagree with each of the following statements?
At the next Election due in 2015, the Conservatives
should be given the chance by voters of finishing
the job of restoring Britain's economic prospects
Agree: 44%; Disagree 46%; DK 10%
Men:
Agree: 42%; Disagree 50%; DK 9%
Women:
Agree: 47%; Disagree 42%; DK 10%
England & Wales:
Agree 46%; Disagree 44%. DK 10%
Conservative Voters:
Agree: 89%; Disagree 8%; DK 3%
Labour Voters:
Agree: 19%; Disagree 75%; DK 5%
LD Votes:
Agree 44%; Disagree 44%; DK 13%
UKIP Voters:
Agree 28%; Disagree 68%; DK 3%
"the convervatives aren't willing to leave the EU despite a plurality of the public supporting it"
Maybe not but they have said they are willing to give the public a vote. Will they do this? Time will tell, my hunch is yes after all even the most self-interested politician has to realise at some point they are governing for the people.
It's the best offer on the table so far. It needs to be repeated - we can only offer the best outcome possible, not the best possible outcome....
Yep, UKIP are definitely in the cross-hairs of the MSM, goaded by the Tories, but supported by the other two of the Con/Lab/Lib party, the three headed hydra with one political body.
Unfortunately, There is no voting in my area on May 2nd, but will lend a hand where I can.
'"Professor Paul Whiteley, Director of the National Policy Monitor, said the poll showed Ed Miliband’s personal standing would have a more positive effect on the Labour vote than his rivals’ would on their partys’ performances."
That was before Ed got savaged by Martha Kearney,
Such semantics matter. Fundamentally, they illustrate that the perceived dichotomy between ‘austerity’ and ‘growth’ – which strikes a chord with some other electorates in Europe – is a non-starter in Germany."
http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/finance/matspersson/100024301/criticise-it-all-you-want-germany-is-not-going-to-drop-austerity/
The truth is that we do not really understand what drives and prevents crime, because governments, by and large, don't care.
"Mike. Are you ready to pay the extra 12% pensioners tax that Farage seems to want? His plan is to fuse National Insurance and income tax. Pensioners don't pay NI"
The fusion of National Insurance and income tax is a policy that I support. There is no reason that a good economy couldn't provide that missing 12% for pensioners from other coffers: perhaps from all the cash going into all these wind farms being constructed.
BTW, I have just found out that my son is voting UKIP in Wiltshire and that my daughter in law has actually joined the party. Happy days!