Just nipped to my nearest co-op to pick up a few essentials I didn't want to drive for. Not a place I visit often, but I'm there once or twice a month. Noticed eggs were up to £2.60 for six, up from £2.50 a couple of weeks ago.
Two pound sixty for six eggs. That's why the Tories are getting castrated in the polls. Ordinary people can see prices going up and up and up every month, with no end in sight.
And their answer? Let's bash the unions, let's fight the nurses, let's go to war with the ambulance drivers. When most sensible people can see even a 10% pay rise isn't unreasonable when prices are going up month on month.
I gave up arguing the budget should have done something about eggs, becuase I was getting a battering on here. But truth is Lady Thatcher would have done something about eggs and milk because it’s the very poorest households and foodbanks suffering from that rise in basics, and this government are currently giving the very comfortably off a hand out to heat their private pools.
Just nipped to my nearest co-op to pick up a few essentials I didn't want to drive for. Not a place I visit often, but I'm there once or twice a month. Noticed eggs were up to £2.60 for six, up from £2.50 a couple of weeks ago.
Two pound sixty for six eggs. That's why the Tories are getting castrated in the polls. Ordinary people can see prices going up and up and up every month, with no end in sight.
And their answer? Let's bash the unions, let's fight the nurses, let's go to war with the ambulance drivers. When most sensible people can see even a 10% pay rise isn't unreasonable when prices are going up month on month.
Eggs are rationed in my local Tesco.
Egg supplies are under pressure due to bird flu, but currently £2.29 for a dozen at Aldi.
--- Egg farmer Ioan Humphreys has called out supermarkets for “not paying egg farmers”, instead blaming avian flu on the shortages of eggs on the shelves.
Taking to social media, Humphreys posted a video contradicting supermarket claims that egg shortages are occurring due to avian flu, stating that retailers are raising prices for the customer but not paying enough for farmers to continue producing eggs.
Humphreys said: “Supermarkets are going to tell you the egg shortages is because of avian flu. Which to be fair, there has been a lot of cases of avian flu. But you want to know the real reason why there’s an egg shortage is because the supermarkets won’t pay the farmers for the eggs.”
He revealed supermarkets have upped their prices for consumers, however, this increase has not been filtered through to farmers. ---
I always buy my eggs from local suppliers anyway, for that reason.
All Starmer has to do is lie low and say nuffin. To be fair, he's basically doing that. There's a growing feeling that 'It's their turn now.'
Short of Corbyn returning, or a major catastrophe being averted by Rishi in a superman costume, this will play to its close.
“All Starmer has to do is lie low and say nuffin.“
Wasn’t that Their idea in 1992 election? So I disagree.
You must always be aggressive in rebuttal, and work on your perceived weaknesses in eyes of voters. They need to turn Starmer into Uncle Starmer - man of the people. It’s easy, just work on his human side, where he grew up, etc. AND They need to get policy idea’s out there. Lots more policy idea’s. If some are nicked by Tories that just hurts the Tories.
"Wasn’t that Their idea in 1992 election? So I disagree."
The fabled triumphlist Festival Of Kinnock Stadium-Sized Campaign Event would suggest that wasn't quite the plan. Even without the impromptu "we're all right"ing.
The fabled triumphlist Festival Of Kinnock Stadium-Sized Campaign Event would suggest they actually were complacent. All around that event of yours they hid unliked mouthy in a potting shed whilst his opponent was in markets on a soap box getting egged as he engaged the voters with idea’s and policy. Labour were sucked in by poll leads and “ours to lose let’s be careful out there” complacency.
Aside from poll leads, what was “best for PM” “best party for economy” saying. If Labour trailed on those they needed to be out their fixing it with gusto. You have to rethink your last post don’t you?
First, that wasn't "my" campaign event in any sense. I voted Tory throughout the 1990s, and thought Labour's 1992 campaign was poor.
However, I think that is the wrong lesson you took from that campaign's failure. It wasn't that Labour were hiding, it was that they thought they could run the campaign through the media alone.
They also thought that Major was a net negative for the Conservatives.
The Tories wisely realised that Major was actually an asset, and that there is no substitute for footslogging.
Blair, on the other hand, *did* learn the lessons of that campaign, marrying footslogging with the media game. And of course he had the huge advantage of polling leads driven by Black Wednesday to work with.
ETA: and of course Labour's poll leads were minuscule-to-negative in the run-up to the 1992 GE, lest we forget that detail.
I don’t think we are far apart on agreement in this discussion, though I need to see more movement from you on a couple of aspects.
“Labour's poll leads were minuscule-to-negative in the run-up to the 1992 GE, lest we forget that detail.” The detail is they were consistent, never behind till the last big poll in last 24 hours, and their lead backed up by council and by elections actual votes right up till election called.
What was Kinnock doing in a potting shed with days to go in a tight campaign other than hiding? If his own team saw him as a weakness they need to tackle that head on, not hide him.
On the polling - from March 11th (the day the GE was announced) to the 8th of April there were 11 polls showing a Tory lead, 2 ties - one of each being in the week running up to polling day.
But I *will* happily clarify in my position on the notion that they feared Kinnock was a liability. They did. And they were right.
Has Major still got his soapbox he could lend Rishi (otherwise Rishi might try and get his from Harrods which probably wouldn't have quite the same impact!)
Too late.
By 1992, Major had been doing the soapbox thing for thirty years. His first election was Larkhall ward Lambeth in 1964. Rishi, for all his talents, hasn't got the experience.
That article about having books in the house being smug and middle class attracted a lot of comment and derision. But it comes from a long line of "Love something? This is why it is bad" school of journalism. Thread:
The Guardian took a definite turn towards more and more of this stuff under its current editor. It’s pretty much unreadable these days, apart from the odd columnist.
Rhiannon Lucy Coslett, the author of the first article bemoaning the middle classness of owning books (despite her name being incredibly middle class), once wrote an article about the horrors of 'spidermanning' sweeping University campuses. Without being crass, she described a form of sexual assault where a male and female would be having consensual sex, while unbeknownst to the young woman, his friends would be masturbating on the other side of the door. Upon ejaculation, the group of young men would burst into the room and throw sperm on the young woman.
I remember this article, since I was at University, and it struck me as wildly impractical. The logistics alone would put the Dolittle raid to shame. I don't doubt it happened to someone, somewhere, but it made me think that Ms Coslett was rather naive to suggest it as a widespread practice and that she was taken in. On the other hand, it may have been that she had a deadline to meet and a lack of material with which to meet it.
Rhiannon Lucy Coslett may sound middle-class to the English.
But, she is a Welsh speaker from Gwynedd. And her life has not been easy.
A BMG poll for i shows that voters are now almost evenly divided over the question of rejoining the EU with nearly one in 10 Leave supporters backing a move to reverse Brexit.
The survey also suggests that Rishi Sunak’s polling bounce is now over with the Conservative lagging Labour by 17 points and the Prime Minister’s approval ratings trailing far behind Sir Keir Starmer’s.
An 18 lead in the last BMG, so a positive Tory poll for HY to talk up there.
Do you have a link to this poll?
It’s an Opinium night and I’m going 28-45. 17% lead with swing back built in.
For comparison, graphlines on 24th was this.
On 28th this.
If Graphs don’t lie, then that’s a steep uphill for my marble to climb on the Lab line. And it will roll off the end on the Tory line.
Has there been anything on the news narrative to change the polls like this?
Surely the Opinium picks up on this trend?
If you superimpose those two Labour lines over each other you will see how much the last week or two of the line can change as more polls come in. This makes analysing the end of the line entirely futile.
Given that the disparity between firms is significantly greater than the variation of any one firm, the change in the end of the graphs tends to reflect which polling firms have reported last. The difference between deltapoll and peoplepolling for the conservatives is around 9% - a function of systematic decisions rather than general polling variation.
It is important to compare any change with the same polling's firm. So taking the last reporting polling company Omnisis - it has conservatives polling in January - 27,28,24,26 - may well be general polling variation rather than a trend with 24 being an outlier?
I use an exponential moving average of polls with smoothing factor of 0.1to iron out MOEs and fade over time. Over the last 6 months it looks like this. It looks flat to me recently.
There are lots of ways to do time series averages, all with their own advantages and weaknesses. My approach would be to construct a time-varying average for each methodology, and then average the resulting timeseries together.
The LOESS method used for the Wikipedia graph has a particular technical weakness that means the end points can change quite drastically. Really the last week or two should be dashed to indicate that it's only a preliminary estimate.
Just nipped to my nearest co-op to pick up a few essentials I didn't want to drive for. Not a place I visit often, but I'm there once or twice a month. Noticed eggs were up to £2.60 for six, up from £2.50 a couple of weeks ago.
Two pound sixty for six eggs. That's why the Tories are getting castrated in the polls. Ordinary people can see prices going up and up and up every month, with no end in sight.
And their answer? Let's bash the unions, let's fight the nurses, let's go to war with the ambulance drivers. When most sensible people can see even a 10% pay rise isn't unreasonable when prices are going up month on month.
Eggs are rationed in my local Tesco.
Egg supplies are under pressure due to bird flu, but currently £2.29 for a dozen at Aldi.
--- Egg farmer Ioan Humphreys has called out supermarkets for “not paying egg farmers”, instead blaming avian flu on the shortages of eggs on the shelves.
Taking to social media, Humphreys posted a video contradicting supermarket claims that egg shortages are occurring due to avian flu, stating that retailers are raising prices for the customer but not paying enough for farmers to continue producing eggs.
Humphreys said: “Supermarkets are going to tell you the egg shortages is because of avian flu. Which to be fair, there has been a lot of cases of avian flu. But you want to know the real reason why there’s an egg shortage is because the supermarkets won’t pay the farmers for the eggs.”
He revealed supermarkets have upped their prices for consumers, however, this increase has not been filtered through to farmers. ---
There are all sorts of factors at play, including the rising price of feed and energy, and the fact that eggs from hens that are locked in for more than 16 weeks to avoid flu, can no longer be classed as free range.
A BMG poll for i shows that voters are now almost evenly divided over the question of rejoining the EU with nearly one in 10 Leave supporters backing a move to reverse Brexit.
The survey also suggests that Rishi Sunak’s polling bounce is now over with the Conservative lagging Labour by 17 points and the Prime Minister’s approval ratings trailing far behind Sir Keir Starmer’s.
An 18 lead in the last BMG, so a positive Tory poll for HY to talk up there.
Do you have a link to this poll?
It’s an Opinium night and I’m going 28-45. 17% lead with swing back built in.
For comparison, graphlines on 24th was this.
On 28th this.
If Graphs don’t lie, then that’s a steep uphill for my marble to climb on the Lab line. And it will roll off the end on the Tory line.
Has there been anything on the news narrative to change the polls like this?
Surely the Opinium picks up on this trend?
If you superimpose those two Labour lines over each other you will see how much the last week or two of the line can change as more polls come in. This makes analysing the end of the line entirely futile.
Given that the disparity between firms is significantly greater than the variation of any one firm, the change in the end of the graphs tends to reflect which polling firms have reported last. The difference between deltapoll and peoplepolling for the conservatives is around 9% - a function of systematic decisions rather than general polling variation.
It is important to compare any change with the same polling's firm. So taking the last reporting polling company Omnisis - it has conservatives polling in January - 27,28,24,26 - may well be general polling variation rather than a trend with 24 being an outlier?
I use an exponential moving average of polls with smoothing factor of 0.1to iron out MOEs and fade over time. Over the last 6 months it looks like this. It looks flat to me recently.
There are lots of ways to do time series averages, all with their own advantages and weaknesses. My approach would be to construct a time-varying average for each methodology, and then average the resulting timeseries together.
The LOESS method used for the Wikipedia graph has a particular technical weakness that means the end points can change quite drastically. Really the last week or two should be dashed to indicate that it's only a preliminary estimate.
Oddly, I've seen conversations between people who work in supermarkets almost all saying the Co-Op was the worst employer out of the bunch. I'd understand the higher prices if they were treating their staff way better than, say, Tesco - but apparently not.
The Co-op is the only grocery shop left in my village. I know several of the staff and they are not complimentary about their employer to put it mildly.
Aside from staff issues, my impression from that branch and the ones in nearby towns is one of disinterested neglect. The local branch has a myriad of problems that a well-managed retailer would pick up an solve quickly. Like a pair of unreliable robo-checkouts that are positioned so that every customer exiting the shop has to walk directly by them, causing the machine to detect movement and yell "PLEASE SCAN AN ITEM!" over and over.
Popular items, even basic things like breakfast cereal, go out of stock and can take a couple of weeks to be replenished. The staff say ordering is centrally controlled and they can't ask for more stock of popular lines.
There's a bunch of other issues that suggest poor management at both area and corporate level; like doughnuts. In the Co-ops in this area their 'bakery' doughnuts are always stale. Even ones put out that day are dry and chewy. This has been going on for a couple of years.
Comments
By 1992, Major had been doing the soapbox thing for thirty years. His first election was Larkhall ward Lambeth in 1964. Rishi, for all his talents, hasn't got the experience.
The LOESS method used for the Wikipedia graph has a particular technical weakness that means the end points can change quite drastically. Really the last week or two should be dashed to indicate that it's only a preliminary estimate.
I had no winners again, and I’m not even sure all survived 😔
There are lots of ways to do time series averages, all with their own advantages and weaknesses. My approach would be to construct a time-varying average for each methodology, and then average the resulting timeseries together.The LOESS method used for the Wikipedia graph has a particular technical weakness that means the end points can change quite drastically. Really the last week or two should be dashed to indicate that it's only a preliminary estimate.
Barnesian:
Many years ago (1966) in OR, I was using Trigg and Leach to forecast varying demand for Dulux paint sales by colour and finish.
https://opess.ethz.ch/course/section-10-3/10-3-3-trigg-and-leach-adaptive-smoothing-technique/
On the back of that I got promoted into sales with a Ford Cortina Estate.
Aside from staff issues, my impression from that branch and the ones in nearby towns is one of disinterested neglect. The local branch has a myriad of problems that a well-managed retailer would pick up an solve quickly. Like a pair of unreliable robo-checkouts that are positioned so that every customer exiting the shop has to walk directly by them, causing the machine to detect movement and yell "PLEASE SCAN AN ITEM!" over and over.
Popular items, even basic things like breakfast cereal, go out of stock and can take a couple of weeks to be replenished. The staff say ordering is centrally controlled and they can't ask for more stock of popular lines.
There's a bunch of other issues that suggest poor management at both area and corporate level; like doughnuts. In the Co-ops in this area their 'bakery' doughnuts are always stale. Even ones put out that day are dry and chewy. This has been going on for a couple of years.