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politicalbetting.com » Blog Archive » YouGov, like Survation at the weekend, finds 61 percent back raising the tax rate for high earners to 50p
We’ve now got the second poll on the Ed Balls tax plan announced on Saturday. It’s from YouGov for today’s Times and finds 61% to 26% against. The detail hasn’t been published yes but the paper reports that LAB voters are overwhelmingly supportive, while 52% cent of CON supporters are opposed.45% think the move would help the economy, 19% say it would cause damage.
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Tax everyone who earns more than I do and give it to me because that's fair.
As for the polling methods etc; as we saw in the last thread - people take or leave a poll depending on whether they like the results.
"Labour = tax rises" is a terrible meme for Labour to revive. Balls has made a strategic mistake.
As for the polls, I'm merely a longtime lurker, but isn't this Mike Smithson falling foul of his very own Golden Rule - a rogue poll is a poll whose results you dislike? Tut tut tut.
Meanwhile .... I note Farage is giving the media plenty of ammunition with his "wrong sort of people in Ukip" moment .... Surely he's not got our own venerable Sean Fear in mind or indeed the ever hopeful Mike ?!?
"40 per cent would want a 50% tax rate on moral grounds even if it raised no more money."
Something that managed to disappoint and shock me.
On moral grounds I'd like child allowance to be not paid to people who have children when they are on benefits like JSA.
Meanwhile ordinary people in shops, offices, factories and hospitals etc are suffering wage freezes and increased prices.
So for the ordinary person, whose £25-30,000 or so pa is a) frozen (or close to it) and b) buying less the idea that those on £100,000 plus, who are apparently untroubled by either wage freezes or a need for honesty, should pay a bit more is quite attractive.
The point of the matter is that yesterday Labour went below their crucial 35% threshold for the first time in years. That will worry them.
Add in the possibility of Scotland voting YES and we could have a flawless constitutional storm on the way: Labour with a small plurality in Westminster in 2015, thanks to impotent Scots Labour MPs, hailing from a country already seceding from the UK.
What happens then? Parliament in Westminster would be paralysed: entirely unable to pass laws. Presumably we'd have a new GE weeks later, sans Scotland - and then a Tory majority?
But then they are the nasty party after all.
LOL
Since many tories spinners were trying to lower tory expectations by saying the kippers were always going to do well then how could it possibly be otherwise or come as a shock to them?
Tax and spend are THE issues where the Labour brand is damaged. People might like a 50p tax rate, but association of any tax rise with Labour is potentially toxic. If Labour don't get enough cash by squeezing the rich, who will Labour tax next? And what will they waste the money on, this time?
Plus they have seriously angered and unnerved the business community - not just rich bankers - and not all businessmen are *hated*. The negatives will, over time, outweigh the positives. It's an unforced error.
It drove the softer tory voters away and kickstarted the kippers off of 5% into their long rise.
Comres makes it: a 1% Labour lead.
The Survation poll found overwhelming support despite associating the policy with Ed Balls personally. In the past Labour made the case for increased taxation to pay for the NHS, they can make the case for those with the broadest shoulders helping out with the deficit; it's not a difficult one.
Remember that people here were pronouncing Ed's energy price freeze to be an absolute electoral disaster within minutes before they realised it was about to set the political agenda for months and the Tories were scrambling to find a version of their own.
The outrage from the PB tories would be deafening.
*chortle*
Flap flap.
I propose a 50% tax (to be paid by the commissioner) on any poll with a sample size of under, say, 5,000...
Prior to the general election yougov published a nearly 6,000 respondents VI poll.
It was less accurate than their previous poll that had less than 2,000 respondents.
We shall see.
As for the energy wheeze, it was clearly a smart political gimmick from the off: this is the stuff that people want to hear from Labour. Making life more affordable. "Tax rises" even for the mega-wealthy, are very different: they are potentially poisonous when mentioned within the vicinity of "Labour".
Par example. Hollande's policy of squeezing the rich was very popular in France, at first:
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-03-02/sarkozy-poll-deficit-grows-after-hollande-floats-milliona.html
... but then the polling moved back to Sarko, Hollande only just scraped through, and now Hollande is the most unpopular president in French history.
Yes I'm losing count of the number of votes the govt has lost this parly. ...
http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/ukipwatch/100256765/meet-ukip-britains-most-working-class-party/
Dave shares their frustration.
If a sample is not representative of the desired population (in this case 2015 voters) then it is not likely to become more accurate by weighting part of the unrepresentative sample.
In particular I have suspicion of online polls. Those of us online are a different bunch in many ways. Pollsters should spend some effort on getting the right random sample rather than producing frequent noisy polls. Of course rogue polls do make good headlines, and sell copy, so perhaps both pollsters and newspapers are not that bothered re accuracy, and accuracy will not be known for 15 months.
First day of the first test today. Nyooooooooooooom!
Meanwhile, Christian Horner has complained about a budget cap. Or, to rephrase, man who leads a team with lots of money objects to limit on how much money can be spent:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/0/formula1/25918114
Yes I'm losing count of the number of votes the govt has lost this parly. ...
Only on minor things like backing military intervention in Syria then? At least you didn't lose boundary changes, oh that's right, you did.
We'll see just how well Cammie comes out of yet another rebellion having to rely on lib dems to save him. I can't see how a very public tory backbench rebellion on immigration could possibly be of any consequence in the run-up to the May EU elections anyway. It's not as if Farage will think it's yet another political gift from the chumocracy and use that on the doorsteps for the campaign.
Good morning to you. But what has motor racing to do with politics?
Edited extra bit: it's hard to tell because of the photo's angle, but I think the Red Bull has gone for a Rhino-type nose (as most teams have).
Edited extra bit 2 (edit harder): also, Marussia are not present. This was unplanned and due to a problem building the car in the factory.
The first half of that sentence is palpably true - they are bothered by cash-flow. The accuracy of polls that are taken now will never be known. We have a fixed election date and people will change their minds.
It's not unusual for models to change and keep getting 'refined' all the way up to a GE.
http://uk.reuters.com/article/2014/01/28/uk-britain-economy-output-idUKBREA0R00220140128
Oh, and Horner reckons the power train might fail as often as 50% of the time in races. So, if you can find the bet and feel lucky, you may wish to back Caterham or Marussia to get their first point this year. (22 cars. If 11 drop out, on average, every races that leaves 11 runners of which 2 will be the backmarkers. Over 19 races you'd expect, if the 50% rate is correct, Caterham or Marussia to score).
' Mark Carney at Davos:
“As good as the numbers have been in the last three quarters in the United Kingdom, we’re talking about three quarters of household-led growth, an economy that’s running 20 percent below pre-crisis trends, that has substantial spare capacity, that has not yet rebalanced. In that environment, exceptional stimulus remains very relevant.”
Food for thought.
I think he might have been chatting to another richard. '
When the BoE start publishing reports in yellow boxes we will know they read PB.
I would point that not only has the economy not rebalanced it has become MORE unbalanced. The key point being when Osborne realised that rebalancing an economy is a lot harder than talking about doubling exports and the 'march of the makers' and takes a lot longer than his political timetable allowed.
Economic rebalancing was thus thrown out and a housing and consumer bubble sponsored.
My economic stat for the day comes from page 44/65 of this:
http://www.ons.gov.uk/ons/dcp171778_347785.pdf
The fastest rising employment sector is ... estate agents. The big increase coming after Osborne introduced taxpayer backed mortgages.
Apparantly rising property costs making British exports less competitive and growing socioeconomic inequality being prices worth paying to get the middle classes spending again.
So when Avery and his accolytes go in ecstasies over the GDP figures it will bring back memories of how the Gordon Brown fan club did so while the economy became ever more unbalanced.
Osbrowne, its hard to see which side of the coin was originally Osborne and which side Brown.
Those weren't due to Con rebellions - try again.
One PBer has had nearly 30 winning tips/profitable bets this calendar month alone.
You called that one 100% correct.
I can appreciate why people might not be into F1. It's fair enough.
Mr. Eagles, you've had an excellent run. Will you be pb.com's World Cup correspondent?
A plurality of voters simultaneously believes that:
- the country would be better off under the Tories
- they and their families would be better off under Labour
That's a very interesting dynamic to consider.
"polls over the last 18 months show too many people still believe Labour spent too much money. Even polling and focus groups done by the unions (who are opposed to the cuts) show this. And that too from Labour voters!"
http://liberalconspiracy.org/2012/02/02/unfortunately-more-cuts-wont-help-labour-in-the-polls/
"In fact “Southern Discomfort” suggests a Labour vulnerability on public services. Three quarters of voters believe “a lot” or “most” of the extra money [spent by Labour] was wasted"
http://www.policy-network.net/pno_detail.aspx?ID=3916&title=Understanding-Labours-political-decay
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-25922231
Do pollsters contact people on mobiles? Many people, myself included, have no landline, as they have no need for one.
ICM do
UK— ICM Research is adding mobile phone samples to its telephone omnibus and voting intention polls, reflecting the growing number of homes that are ditching landlines in favour of mobiles.
Research director Martin Boon said the move would save money in the long run by reducing the amount of time interviewers spend chasing hard-to-reach respondents to ensure a representative sample.
http://www.research-live.com/news/news-headlines/icm-sees-cost-benefit-of-adding-mobile-to-poll-samples/4006998.article
Thank you for the tip. If the cars are fast - and identical - it could be brilliant. What circuits are they using? That is another problem with F1 - many of the races are staged on circuits designed by imbeciles.
People believe that Conservatives are likely to make the country richer than Labour would but that under the Conservatives the rich would get the benefits.
This is why the reduction to 45% was so politically damaging - it destroyed the "we're all in it together" meme and confirmed prejudices about Conservatives caring mostly about the rich.
Formula E will be on 10 street circuits, initially. However, the cars will be slower than F1 cars so it's possible that won't be as bad as it sounds.
F1: The Ferrari's had a reliability failure. It lasted a few corners.
At the moment, the older lot use telephones (landlines) and answer them. They're also more likely to turnout. On t'other hand younger folks don't even have landlines, live their lives online etc etc. I'm somewhere in between. I wonder if at some point in the future telephoning will become less accurate than on line at sampling the younger half of the age range
1. Exports have risen from 28% of GDP in 2009 to 32% in 2012. That is a higher percentage of GDP than China. (Although e have fallen behind both Spain and Portugal on this measure in the last few years.)
2. Private sector debt-to-GDP has fallen by 33% in the last four years. Yes, it is still elevated at 176% of GDP. However, it is now a lower level than the US or Japan (and probably China too). No country - except Ireland - has done more private sector deleveraging (although Spain is close).
3. Government spending as a percentage of GDP was 50% in 2007 (when the economy was booming). It has been cut to around 46% in 2013 - and that in difficult economic conditions.
So, I think your contention that the economy has become more unbalanced is not backed up by facts.
There's quite an amazing rule that's going to cause loads of hassles. The cars can only carry 100 kg of fuel, and the fuel flow is limited to a maximum of 100kg/hour, when a race can be nearly two hours. For this reason, energy recovery and engine management is vital.
This means that if you have a KERS failure (I'm looking at you, Red Bull), the chances are the cars won't be able to finish, or they will turn the engines down so low that I'd be able to beat them in my Honda Jazz..
http://www.racecar-engineering.com/articles/f1/2014-f1-the-power-unit-explained/
The Balancing move is certainly in the right direction. But the UK still has a long long way to go. If Labour get in the direction of travel will be reversed.
Red Bull might not suffer the disproportionately high level of failure with ERS that they did with KERS. With KERS, it was possible to split the system into halves, enabling tighter packaging for aerodynamic purposes but decreasing reliability. The ERS unit has to be whole, so Red Bull won't be able to split it.
And further to point 3 (where your stats are a bit dubious?) public sector spending as a percentage of GDP is not only falling, it is now scheduled to go below 40% in 2017-18, for the first time since 2002 (as Labour have agreed to match Tory spending plans this is now certain to happen - barring unforeseen crises etc)
http://tinyurl.com/kxp9a57
Britain is now in a superior place compared to many of her European rivals. Given the apocalyptic mess we inhabited in 2010, that isn't so bad. It's not brilliant but it could be worse. America is not doing much better.
I also agree Labour would be a disaster.
Industrial ouput has gone down
Retail sales have gone up
Productivity growth has collapsed (indeed possibly turned negative)
Government debt has soared (it has directly replaced household borrowing)
Not much 'march of the makers' there.
Out of interest what percentage of GDP are imports ?
If exports are already a healthy percentage of GDP then Osborne's calls for them to double by 2020 were a misconceived.
The UK doesn't have an export problem it has an import problem, namely our addiction to cheap consumer tat. An addiction that has been funded by debt, firstly household and then government.
That didn't stop the 1980s being far more successful in attracting inward investment than either this government or the previous one has been.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/newsbysector/banksandfinance/10600331/Wanted-French-speaking-plumbers-for-tax-exiles.html
Estimated salary between £ 120,000 and 150,000 a year.
In January last year, when growth was forecast to be 0.6% for the year, I bravely forecast that the growth figure for the year would have a 1 in front of it. If growth for the year ends up at 1.9%, as seems likely, I will only just have been right and not in the way expected!
For 2014 I think we will be very near 3% unless something major goes off internationally. Unfortunately there are a few candidates with the EZ and China being the main candidates.
You lazy slacker.
Get some work done.
And energy. If we imported alot less energy (fracking for shale gas anyone?) then the UK financials would improve immeasurably. This (and increased royalty tax receipts) is the main benefit of fracking not potential gas price cuts.
Also, be wary of mixing retail spending numbers (which are not adjusted for inflation) with industrial production ones (which are real, and therefore are).
Productivity is a made up number. Any country with a high minimum wage has amazing prodctivity, because low productivity workers are priced out the market.
How much would you have cut government spending? Yes, I agree 50% pre-crisis to 46% or so today is not enough. I would rather we were like Spain or Ireland in the very low 40s. However, can I point you to the examples of Greece, Spain, Portugal to see what happens to an economy when you attempt very rapid reductions in the absolute level of government spending.
I agree regarding our import problem.
Ireland 4.1%
China 4.0%
USA 3.4%
UK 3.3%
Spain 2.1%
Italy 1.1%
Germany 1.1%
France -0.2%
George Eaton@georgeeaton5 mins
GDP rose 0.7% in Q4 2013 (down from 0.8% in Q3).
George Eaton@georgeeaton4 mins
GDP still 1.3% below pre-recession peak. US is 5.6% above.