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politicalbetting.com » Blog Archive » A reminder: The Tories need lead of 7.3 percent before they
politicalbetting.com » Blog Archive » A reminder: The Tories need lead of 7.3 percent before they start winning LAB seats and stop losing to them
Tory hopes will probably be boosted a bit by today’s YouGov for the Sunday Times which sees the party on 35% just 4 points behind Labour with both the LDs and UKIP on 10%. Maybe they can even start to think of a cross-over – something on which there is an active betting market.
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I'm a believer in the law of diminishing returns. Presumably, if the Tory polling has improved since then it must have come from somewhere. And if they had already made relatively more progress in other seats then either (a) they are just piling up a meaningless advantage in safe seats or (b) they are making more progress in some of these LD-Con marginals.
(b) feels more likely to me.
UNS is a fine instrument to reflect over after the election but frankly I've never known an election where UNS actually exists on the ground. Somewhat like saying Scotland will score on average 50 points per match in the World Cup but never actually score 50 points in any one match.
I've noted before that IMO differential turnout in the marginals will play a decisive part in the GE and effective squeeze down the bias in FPTP that Labour enjoy.
Or whether it will take some "Illiberal" Labour action?
At times you appear to be verging on complacency
Striking that Gove is so unpopular - I'd have expected a majority saying "don't know". The Tube strike results are mixed - people somewhat against the strike, evenly divided on who is at fault, opposed to banning such strikes, critical of Crow's holiday.
My general view is that most people who voted Tory vs Labour on economics will buy the "still more to do" line. Many of the soft Kippers will vote Tory given the alternative. I'm working on the assumption that some 2010LDs will return as well - giving them 15-16%.
My base case is a hung parliament with Labour the largest party. When I am feeling optimistic I hope the Tories might be the largest party again.
I think the election will be a rerun precisely because the big question from 2010 hasn't been answered yet and the two main parties still have the same fundamental proposition.
In ICM Labour enjoyed a 6 point lead in May 86 only to see it slowly evaporate away and the Conservatives pull comfortably ahead by polling day.
Similarly in April 91 Labour held a four point lead before again seeing the lead turn to dust and a Tory lead of 8 points at the April 92 election.
Crossover ?!?! .... Late this year IMO.
I don't think there's any great incentive for 2010 LDs to return to the fold in most seats. Only those where LD can genuinely claim to be in the game, and most of those are LD/Con battlegrounds.
I do think that for the Lib Dems to change horses would go down poorly with everyone (except Labour voters of course). I would expect the "5 year" rule to be scrapped by Tory votes and Labour abstentions.
If UKIP remains strong I wonder whether this will remain true. It might be that this approach will not be able to withstand the UKIPalypse.
Despite the "happy-clappy" from the left Labour are not making further any in-roads into the 'forties' in the polls. Polls would, I wager, be no more than instruments-of-the-heart: At elections people will tend to engage their heads....
http://www1.skysports.com/f1/news/22058/9077826/gearing-up-for-2014-the-rule-changes-uncovered-and-explained-part-one
Teams only get 5 'power units' (engines plus ERS) per season. Last year they had 8 engines, and some were pushing it even then. With reliability likely to be much lower this will be a real issue. Needing more than 5 means starting from the pit lane. However, if you only need to change a component (the turbo, say) you get a 10 place grid penalty.
The Labour vote always falls when Ed and/or Ed are high profile and they will be wall to wall in May 2015. Labour have missed a trick in not sacking Balls and not, unequivocally accepting their mistakes on the economy. Even last week Balls was defending their record. Rightly or wrongly, the public's mind is made up on Labour's record, they would have done better to accept this and pursued a "we've learned from our mistakes" line rather than continuing to defend what the public have already decided is indefensible.
For the Tories to win outright, they have to do something that no governing party has done since 1974: increase their vote share.
Each week it doesn't happen.
Straw anyone.
I don't really have a particular view as to when or if crossover will occur. If it doesn't happen before the end of this year, though, then the Tories will need a 1992 scale miscalculation by the pollsters (or a late swing)
Since last year, we've probably had a few hundred words on PB about crossover, and many many thousands of words from you about "PB Tories" allegedly talking about crossover.
Self-awareness, much?
In May next year will see significant Anti-Gove tactical voting.
Governments should be judged on results. Labour left the economy and much else in tatters. The Coalitition, Tories and LDs, has done a marvelous job in righting the ship of state.
It would be a travesty to see Labour, under Brown's two delinquent dauphins, returned in 2015.
I fully expect the voters to give the same verdict on Miliband. He and his party have offered no apology for trashing the economy last time and have offered nothing that looks even vaguely like an alternative proposition based on lessons learnt. Which is not a surprise, as Labour's business model is fundamentally, catastrophically broken. It involves the private sector being soaked by taxes and burdened with debt repayment to fund an unsustainable size of public sector. It is a deeply dishonest trick, played on the poorest in society. To say it is done with the best of intentions is no defence whatsoever.
What would be really fascinating is to see what happens if the Tories do achieve cross-over and keep building. If the polls got to say Con 38 Labour 33 by the start of 2015, then a whole swathe of Labour voters might think, what is the point of the Labour Party any more? If Labour can't beat the Tories, I might as well give UKIP a try....
All the reports I've heard - I've never met him - suggest that he is charming, considerate and quietly spoken.
Given he got 57% of the vote last time I doubt he's losing much sleep over it.
Methinks OGH has a bit of a bee in his bonnet about Michael Gove......for the vast majority of voters, the economy will trump all else....
NEW POLL Panelbase, the SNP's prefered pollster, finds Yes down & No up. Results: N 49% (+2) Y 37% (-1)
That ICM "gamechanging" poll looks evermore like an outlier. There has been barely any movement towards Yes.
Sorry ! I did not realise that Labour was responsible for bringing in recession in 18 out of the 20 G20 countries.
I had not realised that Labour was responsible for the collapse of Lehmann Brothers [ which, officially started the credit crunch thouggh it would have come about anyway ]. Nor , I had not realised Labour were responsible for the shenanigans at Freddie Mac, Fannie Mae, AIG etc.etc.
I also had not realised that Labour were instrumental In May 2009, to create a German „bad-bank law“ (Gesetz zur Fortentwicklung der Finanzmarktstabilisierung) which allowed banks to “clean” their balance sheets by transferring non-performing loans and other loss-generating assets to special institutions.
Tens of hundreds of other banks were in serious trouble all over the world.
Greece, Spain, Portugal, Ireland amongst other sovereign nations had to be bailed out. All were Labour's fault.
The US Fed is just now after more than 5 years tapering off their QE which in size and incidence is much larger than ours. That is also Labour's fault. G W Bush must have been a Socialist !
I am trulu sorry for all these mistakes Labour made !
The Nasty Party is the one which massively increased this country's population on the sly - which meant it couldn't acknowledge the massive shortfall in educational or health places coming down the line.
The Nasty Party is the one that treats the poor as vote-fodder. Tells them they have a right to a land of milk and honey, paid for simply by taxing bankers.
The Nasty Party is the one that plays the poor for fools.
BTW, if Miliband ends up as PM, will you conclude that the voters must be right and Miliband does in fact deserve power, or will you conclude that your Canny Voter theory was in fact cobblers?
I am very sorry for you.
The Tories won't be too unhappy with where they are, they have a chance but they need something big and bold to pull the centre ground middle income vote. Over to OsBrowne and it needs to be done in this years budget, next year is too late. Tax Cuts targeted to hit pay packets just before the election. Extend the 0% Tax band, bring NI up to the same level and take the 20% band out as well, all need doing at once to work tell Clegg where to go if he needs to.
£30 or £40 in middle income pay packets per month, double it for 2 earners in the family, a guaranteed vote winner. Has to be bold and this year though and the message has to be told. Tax Cuts for lower and middle earners.
Nice. Real classy, surbiton.
Remember that @ALP forecast crossover by Christmas 2013 (wrong) and this site's self-appointed swingback guru @RodCrosby (he of the ellipsis on every post) forecast it for May 1 this year. We shall see (...)
A big boy made me do it then he ran away.....
Rachel Reeves having a bit of a mare on Marr.......
The Tory hope should IMO not be that Labour will drop back to 29 but that the Conservative vote increases significantly over last time - to 41 or so. I think that's conceivable, though unlikely.
Balls will be a disaster, and rather scarily he is seen to be on the right of his party.
Some politicians, fairly or unfairly, just don't cut it with the electorate. Ed Balls is one; Osborne seems to be another; perhaps Gove is a third.
Another possible explanation is the way Gove is running Education. His spinners will say it is natural that Gove's reforms will upset teachers. Up to a point, Lord Copper. It seems unlikely that no teachers are interested in improving education, so it is surely a deep political failure not to carry the profession with him. Is it no longer part of politics to inspire and persuade?
In any case, it is not just teachers who dislike Gove. Perhaps parents are concerned about lack of school places. There is probably something in this, as the new Conservative line is to blame Labour for encouraging immigration or shagging or whatever it is that has led to an excess of 5-year-olds, and for not having drawn it to Gove's attention in the nearly four years he has been head honcho. If there were nothing in it, why the spin?
Or teachers, or public sector workers etc etc etc.
Have you come across these guys before?
http://www.haller.org.uk/
The centre-left is split into two, an unrepentent lefty lawyer called Utsunomiya and former PM Hosokawa, who is also running on anti-nuclear platform and is supported by former PM Koizumi, who is LDP but likes annoying their key interest groups like the nuclear lobby. The LDP are supporting Masuzoe, who is alleged to have made a bunch of comments about women being untrustworthy in high positions because they menstruate, prompting housewives to threaten a sex strike if their husbands vote for him. This may or may not be related to what looks like a low turnout.
Ed was front and centre of a PPB the other day - his Mori ratings went up.
Teachers, on the other hand....
But none of this makes him a "truly repulsive or nasty person". The personalisation of some of surbition's comments today are deeply concerned. At least SeanT was funny and probably didn't 90% of what he wrote
I thought the Cons need circa 7% to get a majority.Is it right that they need 7% just to start winning Lab seats?
How many people watch a PPB?
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/foodanddrink/foodanddrinknews/10624038/English-distillers-race-to-profit-from-the-4bn-whisky-boom.html
But of course there's quite a bit of leeway in that. If the LDs collapsed in seats, for example, it would be mostly to the benefit of the Cons, without them necessarily winning any Labour seats.
It's also conceivable that a small swing against the Tories could still produce a small net gain from Labour, or a small swing to the Tories could produce a fairly substantial gain from Labour.
UNS should be viewed as just a (fairly imprecise) estimate.
I happen to agree that Labour has done little to indicate it is ready to return to government and that under Brown Labour was appalling (saving the way Brown and Darling responded to the crash - thank God it was them in power and not GO and DC). All in all, the thought of Labour in power does not fill me with any enthusiasm; I rather dread it. But when I read some of the views expressed by Tories on here and elsewhere about immigrants, people on benefits, teachers and all the other people living in this country that they so clearly dislike and hold in contempt, I am afraid that preventing a Tory government has to be the priority.
;-)
http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2014/feb/07/flood-somerset-levels-lord-smith-environment-agency-visit
consistently inconsistent SO. last year you were telling us you couldn't vote Labour after one of the scandals.
Obama`s Sandy response won him re-election.This flood response,if nothing else, is a missed opportunity for the Tories.
There`s going to be no swing to the Tories in this election,that much is clear for Labour are going to improve their tally by atleast 3 or 4 and the Tories by less.I think you might disagree.
Wales host France. To help the English and themselves the Welsh must win.
Italy play Scotland. That will probably be the wooden spoon decider, and Italy at home can be tough.
Last but not least, England welcome Ireland to Twickenham. To help the Welsh and themselves, the English must win.
Our principal aims are to protect and improve the environment, and to promote sustainable development. We play a central role in delivering the environmental priorities of central government through our functions and roles.
http://www.environment-agency.gov.uk/aboutus/default.aspx
Given the above, the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs either approves of the job Smith has done or it has been negligent. Which one would you go for?
And, of course, we do know this:
http://www.thetimes.co.uk/tto/environment/article3999935.ece