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politicalbetting.com » Blog Archive » All the weekend polls: Round up

Killer number for CON in today's YouGov is that 37% 2010 LD voters now say LAB
That has to come down drastically for CON to have a chance

Read the full story here

Innocent_Abroad

First? Surely not...

[Deleted User]

I suspect Clegg may produce a decent manifesto and GE performance. Some of his voters will return, but not enough.

RochdalePioneers

We've had a succession of allegedly game-changing events which have done nothing to the polls. Why? Because most people have already made up their minds. We need something unexpected - a massive sscandal, another banking crash etc - to change it.

Millsy

Who is on Andrew Marr show this morning?

Govt approval is at -21 again with today's YouGov. Continues the step change we saw last week

Millsy

Good to see Gove's Maoist purge is still topping the news. Rumours he is actually on the Marr show?

JackW

RochdalePioneers said:

We've had a succession of allegedly game-changing events which have done nothing to the polls. Why? Because most people have already made up their minds. We need something unexpected - a massive sscandal, another banking crash etc - to change it.

Most of the "game changing" events simply aren't. We tend to over analyse political events on PB and every nuance of policy is digested. However the punters for the most part barely notice and often care less.

However it would hardly be over partisan to suggest that the improving economy will see the Coalition improve its numbers and indeed the slow polling trend in some polls indicate the Conservatives are doing so. That said until the voters begin to turn their attention more fully to the General Election, IMO Dec 14/Jan15, we're likely to continue to see a slow narrowing of the Labour lead.

JackW

Meanwhile ....

PB should for today avert its collective scrutiny of mere polls and political dribblings and determine that by 5:00pm today that Scottish rugby are true world beaters and the most likely candidate to lift next years World Cup !!

Huzzah for hugely optimistic Scottish nobles of a certain age !!

OldKingCole

I'm somewhat amused at Lady Morgan's surprise. "Twas ever thus! Certainly further down the chain ...... appointments to Health Authorities and such.
I was, in the late "80's, "not reappointed" to a health committee on the grounds that someone younger was needed.The person appointed to my place was a) older and b) a Tory!

edmundintokyo

OT Voting closed in Thailand, doesn't sound like there were a lot of fatalities. The anti-government side forced polling stations to close in some of the seats their supporters lived in, which seems like a sub-optimal way to do GOTV.

SouthamObserver

Looks like the Big Mo is with Yes in Scotland. Time to start planning for divorce? It's all rather exciting and sad at the same time.

Innocent_Abroad

OldKingCole said:

I'm somewhat amused at Lady Morgan's surprise. "Twas ever thus! Certainly further down the chain ...... appointments to Health Authorities and such.
I was, in the late "80's, "not reappointed" to a health committee on the grounds that someone younger was needed.The person appointed to my place was a) older and b) a Tory!

Of course her surprise is - what adjective shall I use? - convenient. The fact that the news media can be bothered with it speaks volumes for the fact that we no longer have any real political cleavage in England. Everyone clings to the centre as the centre slowly drifts to the right, which in turn is due more to the ageing of the electorate than to any ideological verity...

SouthamObserver

OldKingCole said:

I'm somewhat amused at Lady Morgan's surprise. "Twas ever thus! Certainly further down the chain ...... appointments to Health Authorities and such.
I was, in the late "80's, "not reappointed" to a health committee on the grounds that someone younger was needed.The person appointed to my place was a) older and b) a Tory!

When someone like Laws lets his displeasure be known, you can't help thinking there's something in it. Take away Europe and he is, to all intents and purposes, a Tory. Indeed, it's folk such as him and Danny A that keep me from thinking seriously about the LDs again next year.

compouter2

That is a whole nest of squirrel polls.

NickPalmer

Millsy said:

Who is on Andrew Marr show this morning?

Govt approval is at -21 again with today's YouGov. Continues the step change we saw last week

That's right. But what's happening with this and other ratings is that the Tory voters are moving from "Awful but better than the others" to "Satisfied" Tory rating for the Government is +83, Lab -81, current LD -9, UKIP -58, 2010 LDs -42. That's why the Labour rating is not changing from the 37-39 range (ignoring the outliers). That should help Tory turnout, but doesn't otherwise move towards victory. A positive sign for them would be if lots of supporters of other parties moved to "not sure", which could be a sign of preparing to switch. But numbers there are negligible.

RochdalePioneers

JackW said:

However it would hardly be over partisan to suggest that the improving economy will see the Coalition improve its numbers and indeed the slow polling trend in some polls indicate the Conservatives are doing so. That said until the voters begin to turn their attention more fully to the General Election, IMO Dec 14/Jan15, we're likely to continue to see a slow narrowing of the Labour lead.

That was certainly the plan. Osbornes emergency budget after the election was very clever in that it built a surplus for the end of 14/15 to give him the usual pre-election tax bribe. Pity that he crashed the recovery so as to remove any hope of surplus but as a strategy is was decent from his perspective.

On the economy there is a basic problem for the Tories. At a macro level the last few decades have slowly eroded wages and purchasing power. From an economy where a single wage was enough to raise a family we inched slowly to an economy where two people can now work and still not have enough cash for rent food and bills, and the economic shock finally has people seeing the reality of this.

I'm not sure that a bit of belated growth will be enough now, especially where at a micro level it can't be felt by most people and even where it can be they dismiss it. For example many of my colleagues have noticed the recent drop in fuel prices. But they're still moaning that 130p a litre is ludicrously high even if it's 5p cheaper than last year. Same with energy prices where the "game changing" £50 off a bill that just went up £120 wasn't seen as a cut by anyone who can add. Or rents/mortgages where you still need two people working full time and a fat deposit to have any chance, and where landlords now auction rental contracts to the highest bidder.

Those of you in the blue corner wondering where the praise for a few quarters of growth is hiding need to step back a little and compare 2014 with 2004 or even 1994. A bit of growth on an economy that few people can afford to live in doesn't produce a huge feel good factor. If New Labour were the opposition espousing the same policies again then perhaps the Tories might do better. But with Labour at least addressing the macro problem even if the solution isn't readily to hand I'm afraid that people arent going to meekly go back to working more for less.

And insisting that people who are broke are better - Good work lads. That'll persuade them you are on their side.....

CarlottaVance

SouthamObserver said:

Looks like the Big Mo is with Yes in Scotland. Time to start planning for divorce? It's all rather exciting and sad at the same time.

And the Survation headline figures may understate Yes, as John Curtice points out:

http://blog.whatscotlandthinks.org/2014/02/survation-enter-the-fray/

It looks highly likely that if Survation had followed the same practice as most other pollsters, the reported Yes vote in this poll would have been over 40% – just as it was in last weekend’s ICM poll and is in this weekend’s TNS BMRB poll.

MikeK

JackW said:

RochdalePioneers said:

We've had a succession of allegedly game-changing events which have done nothing to the polls. Why? Because most people have already made up their minds. We need something unexpected - a massive sscandal, another banking crash etc - to change it.

Most of the "game changing" events simply aren't. We tend to over analyse political events on PB and every nuance of policy is digested. However the punters for the most part barely notice and often care less.

However it would hardly be over partisan to suggest that the improving economy will see the Coalition improve its numbers and indeed the slow polling trend in some polls indicate the Conservatives are doing so. That said until the voters begin to turn their attention more fully to the General Election, IMO Dec 14/Jan15, we're likely to continue to see a slow narrowing of the Labour lead.

SouthamObserver said:
Looks like the Big Mo is with Yes in Scotland. Time to start planning for divorce? It's all rather exciting and sad at the same time.

As Southam has said, the big mo is with yes. So JackW, as the old Boar War song goes: "We are so sorry to lose you but you have to go". Never mind you can always rejoin on PB.

CarlottaVance

Nick Cohen on UKIP and Labour:

Ukip's rise threatens the left as well as the right
That Nigel Farage can speak to former Labour voters ought to be a matter of shame to the British left and a call to arms

http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2014/feb/01/ukip-nigel-farage-rise-labour-no-good

MikeK

Horrible Harriet on Marr. Ugh! Horrible!!!!!

taffys

MikeK

UKIP may receive another boost when a dossier on EU migrant criminality is released this week, the telegraph reports.

DavidL

RochdalePioneers said:

JackW said:

That was certainly the plan. Osbornes emergency budget after the election was very clever in that it built a surplus for the end of 14/15 to give him the usual pre-election tax bribe. Pity that he crashed the recovery so as to remove any hope of surplus but as a strategy is was decent from his perspective.

On the economy there is a basic problem for the Tories. At a macro level the last few decades have slowly eroded wages and purchasing power. From an economy where a single wage was enough to raise a family we inched slowly to an economy where two people can now work and still not have enough cash for rent food and bills, and the economic shock finally has people seeing the reality of this.

(snip)
Those of you in the blue corner wondering where the praise for a few quarters of growth is hiding need to step back a little and compare 2014 with 2004 or even 1994. A bit of growth on an economy that few people can afford to live in doesn't produce a huge feel good factor. If New Labour were the opposition espousing the same policies again then perhaps the Tories might do better. But with Labour at least addressing the macro problem even if the solution isn't readily to hand I'm afraid that people arent going to meekly go back to working more for less.

And insisting that people who are broke are better - Good work lads. That'll persuade them you are on their side.....

That is an interesting post but I do not agree with all of it. What we had until 2007 was an economy where we expected ever rising standards of living. These expectations ran ahead of what increases in real wages, which ultimately have to be paid for by increased productivity, could deliver. So we had spouses working longer hours to deliver increases and then we simply borrowed more of our supposed capital gains on our houses. The reality is that productivity has not been paying for the increase for quite a while.

I do agree that since 2008 we have had the coldest of cold showers with real wages falling for an unprecedented period of time (perhaps back to their internationally competitive value), limited or no opportunities to increase hours and restrictions on the ability to borrow. To think people who have been through that are going to feel great because of a few quarters growth is optimistic in the extreme.

So it is perhaps not surprising the tories are getting little lift. We do not "feel good". Their last remaining hope is that given a forced choice they may grudgingly admit that they have done a better job than the other lot.

Innocent_Abroad

MikeK said:

Horrible Harriet on Marr. Ugh! Horrible!!!!!

You don't have to watch, do you?

Charles

SouthamObserver said:

OldKingCole said:

I'm somewhat amused at Lady Morgan's surprise. "Twas ever thus! Certainly further down the chain ...... appointments to Health Authorities and such.
I was, in the late "80's, "not reappointed" to a health committee on the grounds that someone younger was needed.The person appointed to my place was a) older and b) a Tory!

When someone like Laws lets his displeasure be known, you can't help thinking there's something in it. Take away Europe and he is, to all intents and purposes, a Tory. Indeed, it's folk such as him and Danny A that keep me from thinking seriously about the LDs again next year.

Nah, it's just a crafty bit of differentiation.

LibDems standing up for the leftie public sector worker. Doesn't cost the Tories anything, because not many people who vote Tory or are likely to consider voting Tory care that much.

MikeK

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/matt/
It's turned out wet, again.

Morris_Dancer

Good morning, everyone.

F1: Ross Brawn's announced his retirement. Worth mentioning that what he actually said sounds more like a year off and then deciding rather than a set-in-stone declaration, though.

Mr. Charles, plus Gove is one of the Conservative ministers the Lib Dems seem to like the least.

JackW

RochdalePioneers said:

JackW said:

However it would hardly be over partisan to suggest that the improving economy will see the Coalition improve its numbers and indeed the slow polling trend in some polls indicate the Conservatives are doing so. That said until the voters begin to turn their attention more fully to the General Election, IMO Dec 14/Jan15, we're likely to continue to see a slow narrowing of the Labour lead.

That was certainly the plan. Osbornes emergency budget after the election was very clever in that it built a surplus for the end of 14/15 to give him the usual pre-election tax bribe. Pity that he crashed the recovery so as to remove any hope of surplus but as a strategy is was decent from his perspective.

On the economy there is a basic problem for the Tories. At a macro level the last few decades have slowly eroded wages and purchasing power. From an economy where a single wage was enough to raise a family we inched slowly to an economy where two people can now work and still not have enough cash for rent food and bills, and the economic shock finally has people seeing the reality of this.

I'm not sure that a bit of belated growth will be enough now, especially where at a micro level it can't be felt by most people and even where it can be they dismiss it. For example many of my colleagues have noticed the recent drop in fuel prices. But they're still moaning that 130p a litre is ludicrously high even if it's 5p cheaper than last year. Same with energy prices where the "game changing" £50 off a bill that just went up £120 wasn't seen as a cut by anyone who can add. Or rents/mortgages where you still need two people working full time and a fat deposit to have any chance, and where landlords now auction rental contracts to the highest bidder.

And insisting that people who are broke are better - Good work lads. That'll persuade them you are on their side.....

My word and there was me thinking the Coalition took over one of the poorest economies in Europe with a deficit bigger than Eric Pickles waistline !! .... and then started the hard business of returning to growth.

Your colleagues have noted the fuel price drop. Good. Let's hope they also noted that had Labour been in power they'd have been paying your fuel escalator £1.50 a litre. Let's also cheer that Labour have found a measure to control international gas/electricity prices and prices either side of their price freeze. Hhmmm.

Let's also hear a cheer for Ed Balls and his heroic economic forecasts on growth and unemployment. Has he become the Rogerdamus of the Labour party.

Labour left a basket case economy and the Coalition has had to pick up the pieces. It's not been pretty at times but what did you expect after the profligacy and crass mismanagement of Gordon Brown's "stewardship" of the nations finances !!

Tsk ....

Innocent_Abroad

JackW [9.41am] If the last Labour government was actually what you say it was, is it not irresponsible of the coalition not to have outlawed the Labour Party? Should the Tories not put that into their next manifesto?

DavidL

MikeK said:

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/matt/
It's turned out wet, again.

There is a picture of a poster in the Courier which reads: "Army? We need the navy" next to very extensive flooding.

Struck me as a classic bit of British humour.

Schards

OGH refers to the Lib Dem switchers and their importance quite a lot. These are people that are, clearly, engaged in politics as they recollect who they voted for last time and have made a concious decision to change their preference. These people's numbers pale into almost insignificance compared to the numbers of people who don't give a second thought to politics until the general election when it momentarily crosses their radar. It is these people that the tories need to win over and, come the election, I believe they will as they will be thinking about unemployment and the economy and thinking it probably isn't a good idea to let Labour mess it up again. A message they will have been bombarded about.

On the subject of people's views on individual issues, someone was doing interviews with football fans the other day asking their opinion on possible transfer targets for their teams and got lots of views, only problem was, the players fans were being asked about didn't exist. These polls should be taken with a vast pinch of salt.

TheLastBoyScout

Interesting to see Mike's tweet regarding the 2010LDs @TSE. As I was saying earlier in the week...

Gildas

The graphic on the TNS indyref poll is completely wrong (and is just, I believe, rehashing the ICM poll).

The TNS findings were, in actuality:

Yes: 29
No: 42

Since the last TNS results Yes has risen 2 and No stayed the same. MoE.

Calm down everyone.

http://www.scotsman.com/news/politics/top-stories/scottish-independence-vote-is-too-close-to-call-1-3290253

Morris_Dancer

Mr. W, your comparison of Balls and Roger is most uncalled for and inaccurate. Roger is a far more delightful chaps than the odious Balls, and he [Roger] is also rather good at predicting the Oscars. Balls has no such expertise, of which I am aware.

Incidentally, a thought struck me when I was idly perusing the F1 markets. Now *might* be the time to back Red Bull.

There are two basic possibilities, come the second test. Either Red Bull continue as they are, in which case their car will explode after six laps and their points will be very low, or they will have more or less fixed their reliability issues. If they do then there's a reasonable chance they will, yet again, be fastest (and Newey returning to the drawing board may give them the chance to try and copy McLaren's innovative rear suspension. Not sure if that's the sort of thing that can be copied or not, however).

Red Bull has two major problems. The first is the Renault engine, which suffers 'excessive oscillation' (it vibrates too much). Worth mentioning that on the final day Caterham, using the same engine, did over 50 laps, so the issue may be solvable.

The second is that they've packaged the car too tightly, which means the ERS is overheating. This isn't the first time they've had this kind of issue but is more serious in two ways: ERS is about tenfold as powerful as KERS (if you lose it then you're screwed), the issue isn't a loss of ERS (which is very bad) but losing the car itself.

Last but not least, the test in Jerez was pretty cool. It'll be hotter in Bahrain, one would've thought, so it'll be a harsher test on cooling.

For more of my cunning insights and rambling on the matter, visit my blog: http://enormo-haddock.blogspot.co.uk/2014/02/f1-2014-first-test.html

FluffyThoughts

NickPalmer said:

That's right. But what's happening with this and other ratings is that the Tory voters are moving from "Awful but better than the others" to "Satisfied" Tory rating for the Government is +83, Lab -81, current LD -9, UKIP -58, 2010 LDs -42. That's why the Labour rating is not changing from the 37-39 range (ignoring the outliers). That should help Tory turnout, but doesn't otherwise move towards victory. A positive sign for them would be if lots of supporters of other parties moved to "not sure", which could be a sign of preparing to switch. But numbers there are negligible.

Sven: Wanna' bet that Labour will not win that share at the next GE? Charity/OGH; £50 evens*...?

* ©Wee-Timmy; 2005-2013.

JackW

MikeK said:

JackW said:

RochdalePioneers said:

We've had a succession of allegedly game-changing events which have done nothing to the polls. Why? Because most people have already made up their minds. We need something unexpected - a massive sscandal, another banking crash etc - to change it.

Most of the "game changing" events simply aren't. We tend to over analyse political events on PB and every nuance of policy is digested. However the punters for the most part barely notice and often care less.

However it would hardly be over partisan to suggest that the improving economy will see the Coalition improve its numbers and indeed the slow polling trend in some polls indicate the Conservatives are doing so. That said until the voters begin to turn their attention more fully to the General Election, IMO Dec 14/Jan15, we're likely to continue to see a slow narrowing of the Labour lead.

SouthamObserver said:
Looks like the Big Mo is with Yes in Scotland. Time to start planning for divorce? It's all rather exciting and sad at the same time.

As Southam has said, the big mo is with yes. So JackW, as the old Boar War song goes: "We are so sorry to lose you but you have to go". Never mind you can always rejoin on PB.

"Boar War song ..... " ????

Your pig in a poke post is noted but I'm "sorry to lose you but you have to go" back to school, and under the terms of Gove's new policy, take a hundred lines repeating :

"Ukip are a load of old Boers"

Mick_Pork

Good overview of all the Independence polling with the clear changes highlighted.

More drama as TNS-BMRB poll suggests the pro-independence campaign have closed the gap for the FIFTH time in a row.

http://scotgoespop.blogspot.co.uk/2014/02/more-drama-as-tns-bmrb-poll-suggests.html


Hopefully scottish labour will continue with the complacency that served them so well in 2011

JackW

Innocent_Abroad said:

JackW [9.41am] If the last Labour government was actually what you say it was, is it not irresponsible of the coalition not to have outlawed the Labour Party? Should the Tories not put that into their next manifesto?

Very remiss of the Coalition !!

Sean_F

Gildas said:

The graphic on the TNS indyref poll is completely wrong (and is just, I believe, rehashing the ICM poll).

The TNS findings were, in actuality:

Yes: 29
No: 42

Since the last TNS results Yes has risen 2 and No stayed the same. MoE.

Calm down everyone.

http://www.scotsman.com/news/politics/top-stories/scottish-independence-vote-is-too-close-to-call-1-3290253

The headline "too close to call" is somewhat misleading.

Morris_Dancer

Interesting story on a fake artwork. The French are going to burn it:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-26000331

Richard_Tyndall

Millsy said:

Good to see Gove's Maoist purge is still topping the news. Rumours he is actually on the Marr show?

Really Millsy? The lack of self reflection by Labour supporters is quite staggering some times.

Fraser Nelson has a bit more balance on the 'Maoist purge' issue

http://blogs.spectator.co.uk/coffeehouse/2014/02/sally-morgan-is-wrong-quangos-are-not-stuffed-with-tories/

check out the change sometime around 1997. I wonder what happened then?

Gildas

Sean_F said:

Gildas said:

The graphic on the TNS indyref poll is completely wrong (and is just, I believe, rehashing the ICM poll).

The TNS findings were, in actuality:

Yes: 29
No: 42

Since the last TNS results Yes has risen 2 and No stayed the same. MoE.

Calm down everyone.

http://www.scotsman.com/news/politics/top-stories/scottish-independence-vote-is-too-close-to-call-1-3290253

The headline "too close to call" is somewhat misleading.

You can imagine the sub-editor's problem: what headline does he put? "New poll shows barely any change from last boring poll?" Not exactly gonna wow the browsers in Smiths at Edinburgh Waverley.

The intriguing thing is that all three latest indyref polls - ICM, Survation, TNS seem to have weighting issues. So it's probably best to average them out and see where we are: ICM has No with a 7 point lead, TNS gives No a 12 point lead, Survation gives No a 20 point lead - the average No lead is therefore 13.

That feels about right - there has definitely been movement to Yes, which should encourage them, and there is absolutely no room for complacency for unionists, nonetheless it is a bit early for the likes of Southam to be whispering adieu to Bonny Scotland.

If Labour had an average 13 point lead at this point we'd be saying the GE was all but won for Miliband.

Millsy

NickPalmer said:

Millsy said:

Who is on Andrew Marr show this morning?

Govt approval is at -21 again with today's YouGov. Continues the step change we saw last week

That's right. But what's happening with this and other ratings is that the Tory voters are moving from "Awful but better than the others" to "Satisfied" Tory rating for the Government is +83, Lab -81, current LD -9, UKIP -58, 2010 LDs -42. That's why the Labour rating is not changing from the 37-39 range (ignoring the outliers). That should help Tory turnout, but doesn't otherwise move towards victory. A positive sign for them would be if lots of supporters of other parties moved to "not sure", which could be a sign of preparing to switch. But numbers there are negligible.

The net approval has increased across the board. Not by a huge amount, but it looks like a permanent shift. We will see what happens next week.

MonikerDiCanio

Morris_Dancer said:

Interesting story on a fake artwork. The French are going to burn it:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-26000331

That hideous picture would deserve to be obliterated even if it were genuine.

MikeK

JackW said:

MikeK said:

JackW said:

RochdalePioneers said:

We've had a succession of allegedly game-changing events which have done nothing to the polls. Why? Because most people have already made up their minds. We need something unexpected - a massive sscandal, another banking crash etc - to change it.

Most of the "game changing" events simply aren't. We tend to over analyse political events on PB and every nuance of policy is digested. However the punters for the most part barely notice and often care less.

However it would hardly be over partisan to suggest that the improving economy will see the Coalition improve its numbers and indeed the slow polling trend in some polls indicate the Conservatives are doing so. That said until the voters begin to turn their attention more fully to the General Election, IMO Dec 14/Jan15, we're likely to continue to see a slow narrowing of the Labour lead.

SouthamObserver said:
Looks like the Big Mo is with Yes in Scotland. Time to start planning for divorce? It's all rather exciting and sad at the same time.

As Southam has said, the big mo is with yes. So JackW, as the old Boar War song goes: "We are so sorry to lose you but you have to go". Never mind you can always rejoin on PB.

"Boar War song ..... " ????

Your pig in a poke post is noted but I'm "sorry to lose you but you have to go" back to school, and under the terms of Gove's new policy, take a hundred lines repeating :

"Ukip are a load of old Boers"

Yep! I'm standing in the corner after misspelling Boers. Unfortunately for you though, UKIP are full of the young and hungry and will bore a large hole in the Tory vote.

Millsy

Richard_Tyndall said:

Millsy said:

Good to see Gove's Maoist purge is still topping the news. Rumours he is actually on the Marr show?

Really Millsy? The lack of self reflection by Labour supporters is quite staggering some times.

Fraser Nelson has a bit more balance on the 'Maoist purge' issue

http://blogs.spectator.co.uk/coffeehouse/2014/02/sally-morgan-is-wrong-quangos-are-not-stuffed-with-tories/

check out the change sometime around 1997. I wonder what happened then?

Attempted irony. And i'm not a Labour supporter.

I would like someone to ask how come all these Labour supporters got these positions of power and influence in the first place.

OldKingCole

More classy bowling from Dernbach.

Scrapheap_as_was

So ends the England bowling display for the 2013/14 Ashes tour.

Fitting it should be Dernbach and that it should go for just 26 in the last over.

Richard_Tyndall

Millsy said:

Richard_Tyndall said:

Millsy said:

Good to see Gove's Maoist purge is still topping the news. Rumours he is actually on the Marr show?

Really Millsy? The lack of self reflection by Labour supporters is quite staggering some times.

Fraser Nelson has a bit more balance on the 'Maoist purge' issue

http://blogs.spectator.co.uk/coffeehouse/2014/02/sally-morgan-is-wrong-quangos-are-not-stuffed-with-tories/

check out the change sometime around 1997. I wonder what happened then?

Attempted irony. And i'm not a Labour supporter.

I would like someone to ask how come all these Labour supporters got these positions of power and influence in the first place.

Apologies. I lose track of who is who on here. Tends to make differentiating between irony and belief difficult at times.

SMukesh

Millsy said:

Richard_Tyndall said:

Millsy said:

Good to see Gove's Maoist purge is still topping the news. Rumours he is actually on the Marr show?

Really Millsy? The lack of self reflection by Labour supporters is quite staggering some times.

Fraser Nelson has a bit more balance on the 'Maoist purge' issue

http://blogs.spectator.co.uk/coffeehouse/2014/02/sally-morgan-is-wrong-quangos-are-not-stuffed-with-tories/

check out the change sometime around 1997. I wonder what happened then?

Attempted irony. And i'm not a Labour supporter.

I would like someone to ask how come all these Labour supporters got these positions of power and influence in the first place.

Michael Gove appointed Sally Morgan in 2010.

It`s a storm in a tea-cup.Tories and Lib Dems are in power.They can appoint whoever they like as long as they agree on it.Shouldn`t there be agreement though between Gove and Laws on the sacking and subsequent appointment?

RobD

CarlottaVance said:

SouthamObserver said:

Looks like the Big Mo is with Yes in Scotland. Time to start planning for divorce? It's all rather exciting and sad at the same time.

And the Survation headline figures may understate Yes, as John Curtice points out:

http://blog.whatscotlandthinks.org/2014/02/survation-enter-the-fray/

It looks highly likely that if Survation had followed the same practice as most other pollsters, the reported Yes vote in this poll would have been over 40% – just as it was in last weekend’s ICM poll and is in this weekend’s TNS BMRB poll.

Survation aren't new to independence polling. They had one in Jan 2012.

http://survation.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/01/Scottish-Referendum-Poll-Methodology-Crosstabulations.pdf

Morris_Dancer

Miss DiCanio, as I contemplate my recent horror story (or 'bank statement' as I believe they're technically referred to) I can certainly think of better sues for £100,000.

Mr. (Miss?) Millsy, it is quite laughable, or would be if the state broadcaster weren't either outright biased or simply very inept.

"Look at all these Labour peers and ex-ministers they're removing! Biased evil Tories!"

"... how come all these quangocrats are affiliated to Labour?"

The BBC's one-eyed. It's not just this issue. The Jesus and Mo 'controversy' was portrayed as the evils of something offensive to some Muslims, with no attempt at balancing this with the far more important matter of freedom of speech. It was left to the cartoonist's creator to point out he wasn't a Muslim and therefore didn't actually have to follow its rules.

malcolmg

Gildas said:

The graphic on the TNS indyref poll is completely wrong (and is just, I believe, rehashing the ICM poll).

The TNS findings were, in actuality:

Yes: 29
No: 42

Since the last TNS results Yes has risen 2 and No stayed the same. MoE.

Calm down everyone.

http://www.scotsman.com/news/politics/top-stories/scottish-independence-vote-is-too-close-to-call-1-3290253

Bollocks, their weighting to 2010 general election and when you exclude don't knows etc YES is over 40% and 5% up on their last poll, mirroring exactly the ICM 6% increase. last 6 polls have been going towards YES / increased DK's. People are starting to look at the referendum and they do not like what they see of the Bitter Together Duffers lies and obfuscations. It is one way traffic all the way now. Read Curtice's feedback and he is very far from a YES supporter but has to berate their conclusions.

malcolmg

Gildas said:

Sean_F said:

Gildas said:

The graphic on the TNS indyref poll is completely wrong (and is just, I believe, rehashing the ICM poll).

The TNS findings were, in actuality:

Yes: 29
No: 42

Since the last TNS results Yes has risen 2 and No stayed the same. MoE.

Calm down everyone.

http://www.scotsman.com/news/politics/top-stories/scottish-independence-vote-is-too-close-to-call-1-3290253

The headline "too close to call" is somewhat misleading.

You can imagine the sub-editor's problem: what headline does he put? "New poll shows barely any change from last boring poll?" Not exactly gonna wow the browsers in Smiths at Edinburgh Waverley.

The intriguing thing is that all three latest indyref polls - ICM, Survation, TNS seem to have weighting issues. So it's probably best to average them out and see where we are: ICM has No with a 7 point lead, TNS gives No a 12 point lead, Survation gives No a 20 point lead - the average No lead is therefore 13.

That feels about right - there has definitely been movement to Yes, which should encourage them, and there is absolutely no room for complacency for unionists, nonetheless it is a bit early for the likes of Southam to be whispering adieu to Bonny Scotland.

If Labour had an average 13 point lead at this point we'd be saying the GE was all but won for Miliband.

Fine if you look through those rosy specs of yours maybe but not in the real world. The numbers are shifting to YES and we are still to start the real campaign, best NO can hope for now is that they will be level pegging when the real campaign begins. SO is not far out.

DavidL

Scrapheap_as_was said:

So ends the England bowling display for the 2013/14 Ashes tour.

Fitting it should be Dernbach and that it should go for just 26 in the last over.

Is there some small signs of improvement? Last time he managed the full 4 overs he went for 50, this time only 49.

I am sure the English selectors would not want to be too hasty in light of evidence like this...

malcolmg

Sean_F said:

Gildas said:

The graphic on the TNS indyref poll is completely wrong (and is just, I believe, rehashing the ICM poll).

The TNS findings were, in actuality:

Yes: 29
No: 42

Since the last TNS results Yes has risen 2 and No stayed the same. MoE.

Calm down everyone.

http://www.scotsman.com/news/politics/top-stories/scottish-independence-vote-is-too-close-to-call-1-3290253

The headline "too close to call" is somewhat misleading.

Given the Scotsman is rabid NO champion , it makes it even more of an issue , if you look at the real numbers it is very encouraging indeed. NO are in trouble, shambolic campaign, Darling and labour party in hiding , no Tory party and Libdems obliterated.

JohnLilburne

SMukesh said:

Millsy said:

Richard_Tyndall said:

Millsy said:

Good to see Gove's Maoist purge is still topping the news. Rumours he is actually on the Marr show?

Really Millsy? The lack of self reflection by Labour supporters is quite staggering some times.

Fraser Nelson has a bit more balance on the 'Maoist purge' issue

http://blogs.spectator.co.uk/coffeehouse/2014/02/sally-morgan-is-wrong-quangos-are-not-stuffed-with-tories/

check out the change sometime around 1997. I wonder what happened then?

Attempted irony. And i'm not a Labour supporter.

I would like someone to ask how come all these Labour supporters got these positions of power and influence in the first place.

Michael Gove appointed Sally Morgan in 2010.

It`s a storm in a tea-cup.Tories and Lib Dems are in power.They can appoint whoever they like as long as they agree on it.Shouldn`t there be agreement though between Gove and Laws on the sacking and subsequent appointment?

Has she been sacked? I thought she just wasn't having her contract renewed. She obviously has an outstanding sense of self-entitlement. In any case, as you say, quango chairmen are political appointees and always have been - it's the chief executives who should be neutral deliverers of services.

Personally I'd like to get rid of the level of government patronage that is available, but that is another argument and one that none of the main political parties will entertain.

Carola

Gove doesn't seem to realise that schools do use 'community service' etc already. If he really wants to make a change he needs to stop schools fiddling the behaviour figures by putting pressure on teachers to lump it. Stop exclusions being frowned on by OFSTED. Maybe cut down the volumes of paperwork needed to back up expulsions. Ban 'restorative justice' meetings that seem to treat the badly behaved as 'victims'. But hey, what do I know.

HurstLlama

""Ukip are a load of old Boers"

Really? UKIP is made up of a lot of white South Africans of Dutch extraction. I am surprised nobody has mentioned that before. Might account for a few things I suppose.

Mick_Pork

malcolmg said:

Darling and labour party in hiding

The tories have to seriously start going into election mode in the second half of 2014. We all know the message they have to ram home 24/7. "Don't let labour ruin it again."

When the penny finally drops at CCHQ I'm really going to enjoy the consternation and reactions.

hucks67

The Tories will try to appoint as many placeman as possible into quango roles ahead of the 2015 election, so that they are in place during the first few years of a Labour government. This is the reason why some of the changes are being made this late into this parliament. Of course there will be a few Labour people appointed as well, just to give the appearance that decisions are not politically based. This is the reason why Sally Morgan spoke out about it, so the appointments now receive more scrutiny.

Richard_Tyndall

hucks67 said:

The Tories will try to appoint as many placeman as possible into quango roles ahead of the 2015 election, so that they are in place during the first few years of a Labour government. This is the reason why some of the changes are being made this late into this parliament. Of course there will be a few Labour people appointed as well, just to give the appearance that decisions are not politically based. This is the reason why Sally Morgan spoke out about it, so the appointments now receive more scrutiny.

Shame no one spoke out about it in 97 when Labour came to power and had a purge.

hucks67

Richard_Tyndall said:

hucks67 said:

The Tories will try to appoint as many placeman as possible into quango roles ahead of the 2015 election, so that they are in place during the first few years of a Labour government. This is the reason why some of the changes are being made this late into this parliament. Of course there will be a few Labour people appointed as well, just to give the appearance that decisions are not politically based. This is the reason why Sally Morgan spoke out about it, so the appointments now receive more scrutiny.

Shame no one spoke out about it in 97 when Labour came to power and had a purge.

I am sure Labour were as guilty of doing this, as are the Tories.

Scott_P

Ed's fight with Len will be great for Ed... (part 167 in a series of)

@tnewtondunn: Ed Mili’s Labour party reforms are “music to my ears”, says Unite’s Len McCluskey. Not quite the defining row @Ed_Miliband hoped for.

JackW

hucks67 said:

The Tories will try to appoint as many placeman as possible into quango roles ahead of the 2015 election, so that they are in place during the first few years of a Labour government. This is the reason why some of the changes are being made this late into this parliament. Of course there will be a few Labour people appointed as well, just to give the appearance that decisions are not politically based. This is the reason why Sally Morgan spoke out about it, so the appointments now receive more scrutiny.

The Baroness Morgan case is a tad peculiar.

She was appointed by the Coalition not by Labour and has been publically praised by Gove and Laws and yet let go despite her support for "Free Schools" and other aspects of government education policy.

As a cuckoo in the Coalition nest she seems to have been a good fit and an example of the Coalition not stuffing appointments with their own.

It rather begs the question what was the real reason behind this political cock-up ?

MonikerDiCanio

Unionist rag ( The New York Times ) on Salmond's currency plans;
http://www.nytimes.com/2014/02/03/business/international/scots-cant-completely-sever-their-ties-with-britain.html?_r=0

TwistedFireStopper

hucks67 said:

The Tories will try to appoint as many placeman as possible into quango roles ahead of the 2015 election, so that they are in place during the first few years of a Labour government. This is the reason why some of the changes are being made this late into this parliament. Of course there will be a few Labour people appointed as well, just to give the appearance that decisions are not politically based. This is the reason why Sally Morgan spoke out about it, so the appointments now receive more scrutiny.

Behave. It's what all governments do. Are you honestly telling me that Labour were any different?

Sean_F

malcolmg said:

Gildas said:

Sean_F said:

Gildas said:

The graphic on the TNS indyref poll is completely wrong (and is just, I believe, rehashing the ICM poll).

The TNS findings were, in actuality:

Yes: 29
No: 42

Since the last TNS results Yes has risen 2 and No stayed the same. MoE.

Calm down everyone.

http://www.scotsman.com/news/politics/top-stories/scottish-independence-vote-is-too-close-to-call-1-3290253

The headline "too close to call" is somewhat misleading.

You can imagine the sub-editor's problem: what headline does he put? "New poll shows barely any change from last boring poll?" Not exactly gonna wow the browsers in Smiths at Edinburgh Waverley.

The intriguing thing is that all three latest indyref polls - ICM, Survation, TNS seem to have weighting issues. So it's probably best to average them out and see where we are: ICM has No with a 7 point lead, TNS gives No a 12 point lead, Survation gives No a 20 point lead - the average No lead is therefore 13.

That feels about right - there has definitely been movement to Yes, which should encourage them, and there is absolutely no room for complacency for unionists, nonetheless it is a bit early for the likes of Southam to be whispering adieu to Bonny Scotland.

If Labour had an average 13 point lead at this point we'd be saying the GE was all but won for Miliband.

Fine if you look through those rosy specs of yours maybe but not in the real world. The numbers are shifting to YES and we are still to start the real campaign, best NO can hope for now is that they will be level pegging when the real campaign begins. SO is not far out.

One shouldn't underestimate the value of optimism, but I wouldn't find these numbers very encouraging if I was in your shoes.

DecrepitJohnL

JackW said:

My word and there was me thinking the Coalition took over one of the poorest economies in Europe with a deficit bigger than Eric Pickles waistline !! .... and then started the hard business of returning to growth.

Is that what happened? Or did the coalition inherit growth and debt and stop the growth and grow the debt? Oh, and isn't the deficit higher now than in all but one year of Labour?

DavidL

Presumably England managed to find an earlier flight. Pity for the fans who paid to see a contest.

Carnyx

Good morning!

It is also of note that the TNS polling is reported as suggesting a hefty majority of Scots in favour of Mr Cameron publicly debating with Mr Salmond - 67% wants vs 17% against. That presumably means that a fair proportion of DKs and/or No-minded want to see that debate, so that the blood sports enthusiasts are not all pro-indy types, and there will be a real (if unquantifiable) cost to Mr Cameron's not coming up to scratch to offset against the presumed benefits of not showing his face north of the border.

And new, overtly neutral, website on indy funded by Sir Tom Hunter; it was he who funded the TNS poll, and it will be interesting to see how this develops.

http://newsnetscotland.com/index.php/scottish-news/8672-new-poll-finds-huge-majority-want-cameron-to-debate-salmond

DecrepitJohnL

JackW said:

hucks67 said:

The Tories will try to appoint as many placeman as possible into quango roles ahead of the 2015 election, so that they are in place during the first few years of a Labour government. This is the reason why some of the changes are being made this late into this parliament. Of course there will be a few Labour people appointed as well, just to give the appearance that decisions are not politically based. This is the reason why Sally Morgan spoke out about it, so the appointments now receive more scrutiny.

The Baroness Morgan case is a tad peculiar.

She was appointed by the Coalition not by Labour and has been publically praised by Gove and Laws and yet let go despite her support for "Free Schools" and other aspects of government education policy.

As a cuckoo in the Coalition nest she seems to have been a good fit and an example of the Coalition not stuffing appointments with their own.

It rather begs the question what was the real reason behind this political cock-up ?

Part of Gove's campaign to succeed Boris as Mayor of London imo (as I don't buy OGH's theory that he wants to replace Cameron). Plays to the Tories who will select the next candidate while being, at best, careless about alienating LibDems whose votes Conservatives need if they are to remain in office after 2015.

Charles

HurstLlama said:

""Ukip are a load of old Boers"

Really? UKIP is made up of a lot of white South Africans of Dutch extraction. I am surprised nobody has mentioned that before. Might account for a few things I suppose.

Such as the fondess some of ther members have for Eugene Terreblanche?

(Which, apropos nothing in particular, is the most fabulous name for someone of his political beliefs. If Mr. Dancer were to name a similar character that in one of his books we'd all think he was taking the piss.)

malcolmg

MonikerDiCanio said:

Unionist rag ( The New York Times ) on Salmond's currency plans;
http://www.nytimes.com/2014/02/03/business/international/scots-cant-completely-sever-their-ties-with-britain.html?_r=0

How desperate, Americans cannot even understand or run their own country, yet pontificate on others they know nothing about. priceless, just about sums up the unionist campaign, Putin has chased Cameron so he will be begging Obama to up the intervention even more. We are real worried.

JackW

DecrepitJohnL said:

JackW said:

My word and there was me thinking the Coalition took over one of the poorest economies in Europe with a deficit bigger than Eric Pickles waistline !! .... and then started the hard business of returning to growth.

Is that what happened? Or did the coalition inherit growth and debt and stop the growth and grow the debt? Oh, and isn't the deficit higher now than in all but one year of Labour?

The revised numbers from the OBR show the recession at 7.2% and the Coalition inheriting Europe's largest deficit. Did you expect this to be solved in a few months ?

The Coalition provided the only viable stable government that allowed for long term economic policies to be implemented, sometimes at the cost of short term popular discomfort and micro economic difficulty. The wheel is now turning in complete contrast to what Labour predicted.

Plan A is working, whilst the Ed's Plan B was simply B for Bollo*ks !!

JohnLilburne

DavidL said:

Scrapheap_as_was said:

So ends the England bowling display for the 2013/14 Ashes tour.

Fitting it should be Dernbach and that it should go for just 26 in the last over.

Is there some small signs of improvement? Last time he managed the full 4 overs he went for 50, this time only 49.

I am sure the English selectors would not want to be too hasty in light of evidence like this...

I'm slightly confused about what happened to Flower. He originally said he wanted to go on and on, and Downton has expressed regret that he has stepped down... yet he seems to be credited by some commentators with engineering his departure.

Maybe it went like this:

Flower: I'm happy to stay on, but I won't work with that a***hole Petersen.

Downton: I know he's a bit of a prima donna but he's still our best player. He played no worse than any of them. And, frankly, it's your job to work with sportsmen who may have big egos.

Flower: In which case I am tendering my resignation.

Downton: I'm sorry you feel that way. Do you have Ashley's number?

Personally I think this analysis http://www.espncricinfo.com/england/content/story/714677.html hits the mark: something has to explain why England succumbed to groupthink, and why something that worked for a number of years has suddenly failed so catastrophically.

malcolmg

Sean_F said:

malcolmg said:

Gildas said:

Sean_F said:

Gildas said:

The graphic on the TNS indyref poll is completely wrong (and is just, I believe, rehashing the ICM poll).

The TNS findings were, in actuality:

Yes: 29
No: 42

Since the last TNS results Yes has risen 2 and No stayed the same. MoE.

Calm down everyone.

http://www.scotsman.com/news/politics/top-stories/scottish-independence-vote-is-too-close-to-call-1-3290253

The headline "too close to call" is somewhat misleading.

You can imagine the sub-editor's problem: what headline does he put? "New poll shows barely any change from last boring poll?" Not exactly gonna wow the browsers in Smiths at Edinburgh Waverley.

The intriguing thing is that all three latest indyref polls - ICM, Survation, TNS seem to have weighting issues. So it's probably best to average them out and see where we are: ICM has No with a 7 point lead, TNS gives No a 12 point lead, Survation gives No a 20 point lead - the average No lead is therefore 13.

That feels about right - there has definitely been movement to Yes, which should encourage them, and there is absolutely no room for complacency for unionists, nonetheless it is a bit early for the likes of Southam to be whispering adieu to Bonny Scotland.

If Labour had an average 13 point lead at this point we'd be saying the GE was all but won for Miliband.

Fine if you look through those rosy specs of yours maybe but not in the real world. The numbers are shifting to YES and we are still to start the real campaign, best NO can hope for now is that they will be level pegging when the real campaign begins. SO is not far out.

One shouldn't underestimate the value of optimism, but I wouldn't find these numbers very encouraging if I was in your shoes.

Well there we differ , I prefer to be on the rising tide rather than the ebb.

SouthamObserver

DecrepitJohnL said:

JackW said:

hucks67 said:

The Tories will try to appoint as many placeman as possible into quango roles ahead of the 2015 election, so that they are in place during the first few years of a Labour government. This is the reason why some of the changes are being made this late into this parliament. Of course there will be a few Labour people appointed as well, just to give the appearance that decisions are not politically based. This is the reason why Sally Morgan spoke out about it, so the appointments now receive more scrutiny.

The Baroness Morgan case is a tad peculiar.

She was appointed by the Coalition not by Labour and has been publically praised by Gove and Laws and yet let go despite her support for "Free Schools" and other aspects of government education policy.

As a cuckoo in the Coalition nest she seems to have been a good fit and an example of the Coalition not stuffing appointments with their own.

It rather begs the question what was the real reason behind this political cock-up ?

Part of Gove's campaign to succeed Boris as Mayor of London imo (as I don't buy OGH's theory that he wants to replace Cameron). Plays to the Tories who will select the next candidate while being, at best, careless about alienating LibDems whose votes Conservatives need if they are to remain in office after 2015.

Would Londoners want a foreigner running their city ;-)

Seriously, Gove is not going to be the mayor of London; though I am sure that Labour would love him to stand.

another_richard

DavidL said:

RochdalePioneers said:

JackW said:

(snip)
Those of you in the blue corner wondering where the praise for a few quarters of growth is hiding need to step back a little and compare 2014 with 2004 or even 1994. A bit of growth on an economy that few people can afford to live in doesn't produce a huge feel good factor. If New Labour were the opposition espousing the same policies again then perhaps the Tories might do better. But with Labour at least addressing the macro problem even if the solution isn't readily to hand I'm afraid that people arent going to meekly go back to working more for less.

And insisting that people who are broke are better - Good work lads. That'll persuade them you are on their side.....

That is an interesting post but I do not agree with all of it. What we had until 2007 was an economy where we expected ever rising standards of living. These expectations ran ahead of what increases in real wages, which ultimately have to be paid for by increased productivity, could deliver. So we had spouses working longer hours to deliver increases and then we simply borrowed more of our supposed capital gains on our houses. The reality is that productivity has not been paying for the increase for quite a while.

I do agree that since 2008 we have had the coldest of cold showers with real wages falling for an unprecedented period of time (perhaps back to their internationally competitive value), limited or no opportunities to increase hours and restrictions on the ability to borrow. To think people who have been through that are going to feel great because of a few quarters growth is optimistic in the extreme.

So it is perhaps not surprising the tories are getting little lift. We do not "feel good". Their last remaining hope is that given a forced choice they may grudgingly admit that they have done a better job than the other lot.

You're right about the causes of out problems but those haven't been stopped let alone reversed.

Since 2008 productivity has fallen and is still in decline while unit labour costs have risen significantly and are still increasing.

These trends will continue as long as long as the economy continues to be dominated by ever more wealth consumption.

Easterross

Morning all and having watched Hattie and Gove this morning, his contempt for her faux feminism was hardly concealed. Her complaint was not that Sally Morgan was a Labour supporter being sacked but a woman being sacked.

Memo to Hattie: Not renewing someone's contract is not sacking them as any private sector consultant will tell you. The Tories don't have a problem with women. We had the first and thus far only female PM. Our Scottish leader is a woman as was her predecessor. What we do have a problem with is the Labour obsession with tokenism, i.e. appointing second class candidates because they happen to be women to make up the numbers. Surely if Labour learned anything from "Blair's Babes" is that appointing women for the sake of it is patronising and insulting, especially to those very able women who reach the top purely on merit, not simply to make up some perceived gender balancing social engineering.

MarkSenior

Has malcomg done the graphics for this thread ? TNS/BMRB poll actually had Yes 29 No 42 DK 29 . The Yes tide may be rising but high tide will be well short of the Independence sea wall at this rate .

JohnLilburne

malcolmg said:

MonikerDiCanio said:

Unionist rag ( The New York Times ) on Salmond's currency plans;
http://www.nytimes.com/2014/02/03/business/international/scots-cant-completely-sever-their-ties-with-britain.html?_r=0

How desperate, Americans cannot even understand or run their own country, yet pontificate on others they know nothing about. priceless, just about sums up the unionist campaign, Putin has chased Cameron so he will be begging Obama to up the intervention even more. We are real worried.

Why not answer the points he makes? Oh, you can't.

Innocent_Abroad

Easterross said:

Morning all and having watched Hattie and Gove this morning, his contempt for her faux feminism was hardly concealed. Her complaint was not that Sally Morgan was a Labour supporter being sacked but a woman being sacked.

Memo to Hattie: Not renewing someone's contract is not sacking them as any private sector consultant will tell you. The Tories don't have a problem with women. We had the first and thus far only female PM. Our Scottish leader is a woman as was her predecessor. What we do have a problem with is the Labour obsession with tokenism, i.e. appointing second class candidates because they happen to be women to make up the numbers. Surely if Labour learned anything from "Blair's Babes" is that appointing women for the sake of it is patronising and insulting, especially to those very able women who reach the top purely on merit, not simply to make up some perceived gender balancing social engineering.

Remind me again how many women Thatcher had in her Cabinets, and how many Tory women Cameron has in his. Then say again that tokenism is the exclusive property of one political party. With a straight face, if you can manage it.

Easterross

Do Labour politicians never look in the mirror or think no-one has even a medium term memory?
1997 the incoming Labour government systematically removed as many Tory appointees to public offices and quangoes. They even broke longstanding conventions e.g. appointing their own to the Scottish bench when traditionally one party appointed those from the other party to maintain the political independence of the institution. In Scotland we saw Health Board chiefs etc removed as soon as they could be. It became a standing joke that a Labour party membership card was a prerequisite to a quango appointment.

Rich, privileged Tory front benchers are toff. Rich privileged Labour front benchers who are invariably related to or educated in similar institutions to their Tory opposites are men/women of the people.

Labour in Government stop things e.g. dredging rivers but when their Tory successors haven't restarted those very things, they are negligent.

Labour in government does nothing about an issue, e.g dualling the A9 Scotland's killer road but in opposition ball and shout about the failure of the SNP to do it quickly enough.

the list is endless.

SouthamObserver

MonikerDiCanio said:

Unionist rag ( The New York Times ) on Salmond's currency plans;
http://www.nytimes.com/2014/02/03/business/international/scots-cant-completely-sever-their-ties-with-britain.html?_r=0

The SNP's position will change completely the day after a Yes result, for all the reasons outlined in the article. And there will be a currency union on the terms set out by the rUK, for all the reasons outlined in the article.

MonikerDiCanio

JohnLilburne said:

malcolmg said:

MonikerDiCanio said:

Unionist rag ( The New York Times ) on Salmond's currency plans;
http://www.nytimes.com/2014/02/03/business/international/scots-cant-completely-sever-their-ties-with-britain.html?_r=0

How desperate, Americans cannot even understand or run their own country, yet pontificate on others they know nothing about. priceless, just about sums up the unionist campaign, Putin has chased Cameron so he will be begging Obama to up the intervention even more. We are real worried.

Why not answer the points he makes? Oh, you can't.

The author of the piece isn't even American ( shamefully he's an Eton and Oxford Scholar ). Malcolm tried to play the man but missed.

MikeK

Below; the only pertinent figures that matter: all the rest is bollocks.

YOUGOV

Of every 1,000 votes in #GE2010 how many would vote the same?

LABOUR 730
CONSERVATIVES 653
LIBDEMS 246

This means that Labour have lost a quarter of their vote.
This means that Tories have lost 2/5 of their vote.
This means that the L/Dems have lost 3/4 of their vote.

Where have these votes gone?
Some have vanished forever
Some have gone to the don't knows.
Some have sprinkled to the other main parties.
A very few have gone green.
But the majority have gone to UKIP.

Perhaps a person much cleverer in maths than me can make a proper table on this.

Easterross

Innocent_Abroad said:

Easterross said:

Morning all and having watched Hattie and Gove this morning, his contempt for her faux feminism was hardly concealed. Her complaint was not that Sally Morgan was a Labour supporter being sacked but a woman being sacked.

Memo to Hattie: Not renewing someone's contract is not sacking them as any private sector consultant will tell you. The Tories don't have a problem with women. We had the first and thus far only female PM. Our Scottish leader is a woman as was her predecessor. What we do have a problem with is the Labour obsession with tokenism, i.e. appointing second class candidates because they happen to be women to make up the numbers. Surely if Labour learned anything from "Blair's Babes" is that appointing women for the sake of it is patronising and insulting, especially to those very able women who reach the top purely on merit, not simply to make up some perceived gender balancing social engineering.

Remind me again how many women Thatcher had in her Cabinets, and how many Tory women Cameron has in his. Then say again that tokenism is the exclusive property of one political party. With a straight face, if you can manage it.

Thatcher didn't have women MPs in her cabinet because she didn't rate them other than Baroness Young who served for some time. Cameron has very able women in his cabinet. Teresa May has been in one job longer than John Reid was in about half a dozen in total.

edmundintokyo

OT Thailand: Red team doing better than expected:

http://pic.twitter.com/Kq7MdYJWBc

Pulpstar

What a shower !

Pulpstar

Start the plane

Gildas

SouthamObserver said:

MonikerDiCanio said:

Unionist rag ( The New York Times ) on Salmond's currency plans;
http://www.nytimes.com/2014/02/03/business/international/scots-cant-completely-sever-their-ties-with-britain.html?_r=0

The SNP's position will change completely the day after a Yes result, for all the reasons outlined in the article. And there will be a currency union on the terms set out by the rUK, for all the reasons outlined in the article.

Are you officially predicting a YES vote? Can we file this alongside your famous declaration that Romney Will Win?

surbiton

Usually, local by-election results are a good guide. Hardened voters vote in these elections.

Therefore, a 25% turnout is worth more, perhaps, 30% as most of these voters are 100% certs.

These are real votes, not some sample in a database.

For some reason, the Tories have started 2014 badly. I cannot see any particular reason.

Maybe, this one. For all talk of economic recovery, it maybe upsetting some people as they contrast their own situations with the rich, i.e. the Tories.

http://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/2014/01/31/britons-wages-g7-recession_n_4701311.html?utm_hp_ref=uk

UK Real Wages Down 6.1% In Biggest Fall Of G7 Nations

OldKingCole

JohnLilburne said:

DavidL said:

Scrapheap_as_was said:

So ends the England bowling display for the 2013/14 Ashes tour.

Fitting it should be Dernbach and that it should go for just 26 in the last over.

Is there some small signs of improvement? Last time he managed the full 4 overs he went for 50, this time only 49.

I am sure the English selectors would not want to be too hasty in light of evidence like this...

I'm slightly confused about what happened to Flower. He originally said he wanted to go on and on, and Downton has expressed regret that he has stepped down... yet he seems to be credited by some commentators with engineering his departure.

Maybe it went like this:

Flower: I'm happy to stay on, but I won't work with that a***hole Petersen.

Downton: I know he's a bit of a prima donna but he's still our best player. He played no worse than any of them. And, frankly, it's your job to work with sportsmen who may have big egos.

Flower: In which case I am tendering my resignation.

Downton: I'm sorry you feel that way. Do you have Ashley's number?

Personally I think this analysis http://www.espncricinfo.com/england/content/story/714677.html hits the mark: something has to explain why England succumbed to groupthink, and why something that worked for a number of years has suddenly failed so catastrophically.


Very perspicacious commentator, George Dobell. I liked the comments about Gooch, too. Gooch was one of these players who were a natural; such players rarely ...... Flower is an exception .... make good coaches.

MarkSenior

MikeK said:

Below; the only pertinent figures that matter: all the rest is bollocks.

YOUGOV

Of every 1,000 votes in #GE2010 how many would vote the same?

LABOUR 730
CONSERVATIVES 653
LIBDEMS 246

This means that Labour have lost a quarter of their vote.
This means that Tories have lost 2/5 of their vote.
This means that the L/Dems have lost 3/4 of their vote.

Where have these votes gone?
Some have vanished forever
Some have gone to the don't knows.
Some have sprinkled to the other main parties.
A very few have gone green.
But the majority have gone to UKIP.

Perhaps a person much cleverer in maths than me can make a proper table on this.

the majority have not gone to UKIP many more have gone to WNV or DK The numbers who have gone to UKIP are roughly
Labour 45 Conservative 140 Lib Dem 48 all per thousand

MonikerDiCanio

surbiton said:

Usually, local by-election results are a good guide. Hardened voters vote in these elections.

Therefore, a 25% turnout is worth more, perhaps, 30% as most of these voters are 100% certs.

These are real votes, not some sample in a database.

For some reason, the Tories have started 2014 badly. I cannot see any particular reason.

Maybe, this one. For all talk of economic recovery, it maybe upsetting some people as they contrast their own situations with the rich, i.e. the Tories.

http://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/2014/01/31/britons-wages-g7-recession_n_4701311.html?utm_hp_ref=uk

UK Real Wages Down 6.1% In Biggest Fall Of G7 Nations

Why would you expect otherwise after Brown's spectacular crash ?

surbiton

MonikerDiCanio said:

surbiton said:

Usually, local by-election results are a good guide. Hardened voters vote in these elections.

Therefore, a 25% turnout is worth more, perhaps, 30% as most of these voters are 100% certs.

These are real votes, not some sample in a database.

For some reason, the Tories have started 2014 badly. I cannot see any particular reason.

Maybe, this one. For all talk of economic recovery, it maybe upsetting some people as they contrast their own situations with the rich, i.e. the Tories.

http://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/2014/01/31/britons-wages-g7-recession_n_4701311.html?utm_hp_ref=uk

UK Real Wages Down 6.1% In Biggest Fall Of G7 Nations

Why would you expect otherwise after Brown's spectacular crash ?

During election time voters pass judgement on the previous 5 years - not 5 years prior to that!

surbiton

MarkSenior said:

MikeK said:

Below; the only pertinent figures that matter: all the rest is bollocks.

YOUGOV

Of every 1,000 votes in #GE2010 how many would vote the same?

LABOUR 730
CONSERVATIVES 653
LIBDEMS 246

This means that Labour have lost a quarter of their vote.
This means that Tories have lost 2/5 of their vote.
This means that the L/Dems have lost 3/4 of their vote.

Where have these votes gone?
Some have vanished forever
Some have gone to the don't knows.
Some have sprinkled to the other main parties.
A very few have gone green.
But the majority have gone to UKIP.

Perhaps a person much cleverer in maths than me can make a proper table on this.

the majority have not gone to UKIP many more have gone to WNV or DK The numbers who have gone to UKIP are roughly
Labour 45 Conservative 140 Lib Dem 48 all per thousand

The 48/1000 LD's are really NOTA's. The Greens could have had them if they had put their act together !

DavidL

another_richard said:

DavidL said:

RochdalePioneers said:

JackW said:

(snip)

So it is perhaps not surprising the tories are getting little lift. We do not "feel good". Their last remaining hope is that given a forced choice they may grudgingly admit that they have done a better job than the other lot.

You're right about the causes of out problems but those haven't been stopped let alone reversed.

Since 2008 productivity has fallen and is still in decline while unit labour costs have risen significantly and are still increasing.

These trends will continue as long as long as the economy continues to be dominated by ever more wealth consumption.

There are clear limits what the government can do about productivity in the short term. Reducing head count in the public sector helps and they have done that. They can try to encourage investment but that is very difficult after a financial recession where credit and demand are both limited. In the longer run education can help but that is a very long run.

I am not completely sure what you mean by wealth consumption. If you mean running a trade deficit there is little the government can do about that either. This government has put more effort into international trade than any I can recall but international demand is also restricted especially in our main market in Europe.

To have done major damage to our trade deficit domestic demand would have had to have been slaughtered in a recession that would have caused massive unemployment (no doubt boosting productivity). That would really not have been better.

There are no easy solutions. The decline in our trade and competitiveness had been going on since at least 1997 (last year when our BoP was in credit) with a government that was indifferent. Your complaints about this government not having reversed these trends overnight are unrealistic in my opinion.

Scrapheap_as_was

As ever the only good thing about English cricket to rely on is TMS.

Charles Dagnall, BBC Test Match Special
"What a complete mockery this is. I feel sorry for the fans, as everyone wanted to see some competitive cricket."

Scrapheap_as_was

Great symmetry - Dernbach to be the last out on the Ashes tour 2013/14?

JohnLilburne

OldKingCole said:

JohnLilburne said:

DavidL said:

Scrapheap_as_was said:

So ends the England bowling display for the 2013/14 Ashes tour.

Fitting it should be Dernbach and that it should go for just 26 in the last over.

Is there some small signs of improvement? Last time he managed the full 4 overs he went for 50, this time only 49.

I am sure the English selectors would not want to be too hasty in light of evidence like this...

I'm slightly confused about what happened to Flower. He originally said he wanted to go on and on, and Downton has expressed regret that he has stepped down... yet he seems to be credited by some commentators with engineering his departure.

Maybe it went like this:

Flower: I'm happy to stay on, but I won't work with that a***hole Petersen.

Downton: I know he's a bit of a prima donna but he's still our best player. He played no worse than any of them. And, frankly, it's your job to work with sportsmen who may have big egos.

Flower: In which case I am tendering my resignation.

Downton: I'm sorry you feel that way. Do you have Ashley's number?

Personally I think this analysis http://www.espncricinfo.com/england/content/story/714677.html hits the mark: something has to explain why England succumbed to groupthink, and why something that worked for a number of years has suddenly failed so catastrophically.

Very perspicacious commentator, George Dobell. I liked the comments about Gooch, too. Gooch was one of these players who were a natural; such players rarely ...... Flower is an exception .... make good coaches. Dobell's probably the only CricInfo writer I look out by name. It does make sense: in business you employ an entirely different strategy when turning a business round rather than running a mature one. It's one of the reasons why some businesses specialise in buying basket cases, and then sell them on and take a profit when they have done so (rather than, you might think, continue to run them at a profit for longer term reward).

Flower looks like he is a one-trick pony: brilliant at the turn-round, not so good at running a mature team - when the wheels start to fall off, all he can do is more of the same.

For the good of world cricket, he should be offered a role coaching the west Indies.

And yes I am not sure Gooch is a great coach. One of those players who was often unorthodox himself but cannot work out how other people might be able to do things differently. And not, apparently, a great communicator.