At some point, one nation and Business/Thatcherite conservatives need to start to fight for control of the right, rather than bowing down to and toying with Trumpian populists. Today, they look like a dying breed.
Who on the right can stand up to Braverman, Farage and the divisive menagerie.
Who on the left can?
It will keep happening - indeed, it will grow - until someone in office gets a grip on migration.
This will shortly become Labour's problem. And putting your fingers in your ears isn't a strategy.
Immigration is an issue that largely concerns Tory and Reform voters. It is far less of a primary concern for everyone else. There was a very good piece on this in the FT at the end if last week.
Well i am on NOM at what i think are generous odds considering SKS cant answer a single off script question without appearing to be the Lettuce;s 2nd coming
Harking back to the last thread, it looks like the right is searching for and trialling negative material or smears (delete as appropriate) for the election campaign.
Yep. Tricky, on the face of it.
If SKS spams "I will always defend the Rule of Law" as a response throughout the campaign the Tories will give up.
This not a story, just as 'barrister defends person accused of terrorist murder' or 'doctor performs life saving operation on convicted terrorist killer' is not a story.
Ian Wright us stepping down from Match of the Day. Can it be hoped that the ghastly Lineker will leave too.?
That is a shame. I rather like Ian Wright. He wears his heart on his sleeve, which I rather like.
Re Lineker - He is rather good at his job. What is your objection? Is it the money he costs or the fact that he tweaks the noses of politicians or that you don't think he should be allowed to while presenting on BBC? They seem to be the main reasons people object to him. Haven't seen anyone complain about the fact that he does a good job.
Lineker is a tad too smarmy for me, made worse by the ridiculous salary so not surprised he grates with those who don't like his politics, even if the level of their objection tends to the absurd.
I have a feeling that Lineker isn't particularly left wing. He's so familiar with the wind up merchant aspect of football, he simply can't resist baiting the gammons.
That dopamine rush hits hard. I've been taking notes.
But, if you get your kicks from winding up other people, it normally points to deeper rooted issues.
It's hard not to tbh. You make a detailed analysis of Rwanda/20mph/Israel and everyone loses their minds. Might as well embrace it.
On the subject of 20mph, I take it we've all accepted Vaughan Gething will be the next FM of the rotten Borough of Cymru?
Am I right in thinking he doesn't speak Welsh? If so, he would be the first First Minister not to speak it fluently.
It's a dead language, speaking Latin is more relevant and useful.
You ought ot have a holiday in Wales sometime. Listen to the bairns on the school run train up the coast from the Dovey and Barmouth estuaries. They seem very alive to me ...
I love hearing Gaelic when I visit Scotland but not Welsh in Wales.
Depends where you have your holiday home.
BTW, did you see the legislation has been passed to permit (not require) double council tax on second homes, but also be a bit more sensible about new buyers of empty homes to give them a chance to renovate/repair?
If it's anything like the latest pavement parking legislation there will be an exception for "people who have owned the land since before the Wars of Independence".
I was expecting the article to be by @NickPalmer given the headline...
An interesting analysis, but drawing a conclusion rather different from mine. Because swings of such magnitude are very rare, I would say Labour is unlikely to get an overall majority. Not impossible, but unlikely.
A couple of other points:
1) It's not worth considering elections before 1885 for swing, due to the restricted electorate, and in many ways it isn't worth considering elections before 1918 due to the limited number of seats actually contested. In 1900, for example, 243 seats were returned unopposed.
2) This also solves the problem with 1918!
3) I would also note the swing in 1931 was fiendishly complicated as well, due to splits, electoral pacts and the economic crisis. So that swing is not much use as a comparison.
4) The 1945 general election was not only the only election since 1900 held in wartime* but brought an end to the longest parliament since the dissolution of the Long Parliament in 1660. It was also the last election at which multiple voting was allowed. I don't think the swing there tells us much either.
5) That means that there is only one election where there was a swing which - if replicated - would give Starmer's Labour a majority. The election concerned was 1997. That swing would give Starmer a majority of one.
That's a formidable task. It's remarkable it's even possible, but even allowing for Rishi Sunak being more deluded than a Republican Senator it seems to me in the words of Lord Peter Wimsey an improbable-possible.
*Technically 1918 was too but there was a ceasefire in effect, so I'm not counting that.
All very good points.
I sway between thinking a) Labour can't possibly win a majority given the swing required, and b) the Conservatives can't possibly stop them given the past two years' poll and the ineptitude of the current leadership.
Truth is, none of us knows. A real-life drama will unfold next year.
True, but if we gave up speculating how would @TSE know where to put his money to pay for more pairs of shoes?
(I enjoyed the header, by the way - was it you or TSE wrote the headline?)
Me; TSE would probably have remembered to put an apostrophe after swingers.
(Although there's an arguable case against the apostrophe.)
Ian Wright us stepping down from Match of the Day. Can it be hoped that the ghastly Lineker will leave too.?
That is a shame. I rather like Ian Wright. He wears his heart on his sleeve, which I rather like.
Re Lineker - He is rather good at his job. What is your objection? Is it the money he costs or the fact that he tweaks the noses of politicians or that you don't think he should be allowed to while presenting on BBC? They seem to be the main reasons people object to him. Haven't seen anyone complain about the fact that he does a good job.
Lineker is a tad too smarmy for me, made worse by the ridiculous salary so not surprised he grates with those who don't like his politics, even if the level of their objection tends to the absurd.
I have a feeling that Lineker isn't particularly left wing. He's so familiar with the wind up merchant aspect of football, he simply can't resist baiting the gammons.
That dopamine rush hits hard. I've been taking notes.
But, if you get your kicks from winding up other people, it normally points to deeper rooted issues.
It's hard not to tbh. You make a detailed analysis of Rwanda/20mph/Israel and everyone loses their minds. Might as well embrace it.
On the subject of 20mph, I take it we've all accepted Vaughan Gething will be the next FM of the rotten Borough of Cymru?
Am I right in thinking he doesn't speak Welsh? If so, he would be the first First Minister not to speak it fluently.
It's a dead language, speaking Latin is more relevant and useful.
Not in North Wales, Carmarthenshire, Ceredigion, and Pontcanna it isn't.
At some point, one nation and Business/Thatcherite conservatives need to start to fight for control of the right, rather than bowing down to and toying with Trumpian populists. Today, they look like a dying breed.
Who on the right can stand up to Braverman, Farage and the divisive menagerie.
Who on the left can?
It will keep happening - indeed, it will grow - until someone in office gets a grip on migration.
This will shortly become Labour's problem. And putting your fingers in your ears isn't a strategy.
Immigration is an issue that largely concerns Tory and Reform voters. It is far less of a primary concern for everyone else. There was a very good piece on this in the FT at the end if last week.
I was expecting the article to be by @NickPalmer given the headline...
An interesting analysis, but drawing a conclusion rather different from mine. Because swings of such magnitude are very rare, I would say Labour is unlikely to get an overall majority. Not impossible, but unlikely.
A couple of other points:
1) It's not worth considering elections before 1885 for swing, due to the restricted electorate, and in many ways it isn't worth considering elections before 1918 due to the limited number of seats actually contested. In 1900, for example, 243 seats were returned unopposed.
2) This also solves the problem with 1918!
3) I would also note the swing in 1931 was fiendishly complicated as well, due to splits, electoral pacts and the economic crisis. So that swing is not much use as a comparison.
4) The 1945 general election was not only the only election since 1900 held in wartime* but brought an end to the longest parliament since the dissolution of the Long Parliament in 1660. It was also the last election at which multiple voting was allowed. I don't think the swing there tells us much either.
5) That means that there is only one election where there was a swing which - if replicated - would give Starmer's Labour a majority. The election concerned was 1997. That swing would give Starmer a majority of one.
That's a formidable task. It's remarkable it's even possible, but even allowing for Rishi Sunak being more deluded than a Republican Senator it seems to me in the words of Lord Peter Wimsey an improbable-possible.
*Technically 1918 was too but there was a ceasefire in effect, so I'm not counting that.
Your thesis is that historical precedent (or lack thereof) trumps polling. I am sceptical. I think polling trumps historical precedent.
There’s no magic about historical precedent. It’s just what has happened to happen. There isn’t a mechanism of action by which what has happened before constrains what will happen next time. If very large numbers of people are saying they will vote Labour, and only small numbers say Conservative, I think we have to believe them.
I think you're misunderstanding historical precedent. The point is not that 'because it was ever thus, it ever will be.' That's legal precedent. Historical precedent is, 'this is how our structures play out in the real world.' That incidentally includes polling precedent. You will notice we don't use that much and never from before 1992 because so many changes to methodology have taken place since then. (If we were, I'd point out that Labour had far larger leads than now in 1963 and came within an ace of losing the 1964 election. Even allowing for that, if memory serves Labour were frequently 16-20 points behind in the polls from 2008-10 and the electoral system helpfully still delivered them a hung Parliament on a mere 29% of the vote, although the Tories would be fools to expect a similar result on a similar share.)
It's also why I'm saying we should discount elections before 1945 in considering likely outcomes. I am pointing out that if we do such swings are extremely rare, and such seat gains as Labour require for a majority equally rare. Our system militates against it.
That doesn't mean such an outcome is impossible, merely that it shouldn't be favourite. Don't look at just the polls, look at the practicalities too.
I think your case is that such swings HAVE BEEN extremely rare, which isn’t the same as saying they ARE extremely rare. The world can change.
If we take the polling at face value, then this analysis of historical swings suggests the next election will have a record swing. That could be because we’ve had an unusual period of politics (Brexit, the oddities of 2017/9, the rise of the Brexit Party/Reform), including other unprecedented events (COVID-19, PM turnover, PM law-breaking, tax levels, immigration levels).
But maybe also people’s voting behaviours have changed. The idea that you can’t have large swings comes down to the idea that most people won’t change how they vote. The “practicalities” of which you speak are of getting people to vote for a different party than last time. Maybe, in the modern era, after some unprecedented referendums, in a world of social media, people are just much more changeable in how they vote. I note that two out of the three highest ever Conservative->Labour swings in by-elections have been in this Parliament, and three out of the four highest Conservative->LibDem swings too. Isn’t that evidence that the electorate has become “swingier”?
Yes, by definition because they have been rare they are rare. There is very little evidence that swings will be greater (although Scotland 2015 may be a canary in the coal mine, but we still need actual evidence).
Just to put your reply in a way I think you might appreciate, what you have effectively said is that because perpetual motion machines haven’t worked up to now doesn’t mean AI may not be about to change it.
No, that’s a terrible argument for why perpetual motion machines don’t work. Perpetual motion machines don’t work because of physics. We can show that without ever having to look at their track record in history.
That’s the difference here. There is no psephological principle equivalent to the laws of thermodynamics that mean double digit swings can’t happen.
Well i am on NOM at what i think are generous odds considering SKS cant answer a single off script question without appearing to be the Lettuce;s 2nd coming
I see LDs getting lots of the Tory seats making it harder for LAB to get over 50% of the seats.
Something big and new would have to transpire for Lab to miss a majority now imo. It could happen but I suspect it would have to be something we have no sight of yet.
Certainly the points you criticise Starmer for won't be enough, they are already baked into the polls.
In the past the main dividing line between conservative and Labour was class based. Hence swings tended to be small as there were two basic monolithic voting blocks.
Today the class based system has broken down into several voting blocks, for example the seven segments used by More in Common https://www.britainschoice.uk/segments/
As such both Conservatives and Labour have to appeal to a significantly bigger tent of voters to form a majority which brings its stresses and strains when trying to appeal specifically to one segment whilst not putting off another.
Thus it is possible now to have a larger swing if one segment moves party because of a particular focus (or non focus) on issues which they approve/disapprove.
It also makes the task of remaining in government more difficult as there are different political pressures as a result of the fragmentation.
Historic analysis of swings I would argue are not particularly relevant given the changing social and political dynamics of the population.
At some point, one nation and Business/Thatcherite conservatives need to start to fight for control of the right, rather than bowing down to and toying with Trumpian populists. Today, they look like a dying breed.
Who on the right can stand up to Braverman, Farage and the divisive menagerie.
Who on the left can?
It will keep happening - indeed, it will grow - until someone in office gets a grip on migration.
This will shortly become Labour's problem. And putting your fingers in your ears isn't a strategy.
Immigration is an issue that largely concerns Tory and Reform voters. It is far less of a primary concern for everyone else. There was a very good piece on this in the FT at the end if last week.
Labour need to have answers to this, or you might find those Tory and Reform voter numbers grow rather quickly.
Given the record high immigration has happened under the Conservatives, why would people worried about the levels of immigration move to the Tories?
I think some of the routes that have led to high immigration are going to reduce whoever is in power. Student numbers will level out. The Ukraine and Hong Kong schemes will see fewer coming.
Yes, I can’t see how the Tories can win votes on immigration when they are responsible for increasing it to record levels, especially as they are the first govt in a long while not hamstrung by FOM. It will surely just play into Reform’s hands to give the issue much prominence. And of course, (I’m not going to browbeaten into not saying what I want to say), whether his supporters like it or not, Sir Keir has dropped his leadership pledge to support FOM down the memory hole & is talking tough on immigration too nowadays, equating low migration with higher wages
In short, making immigration a big issue will only really help Farage and Reform; I’m relieved I didn’t have the bet I fancied on the Greens to outpoll them now
I was expecting the article to be by @NickPalmer given the headline...
An interesting analysis, but drawing a conclusion rather different from mine. Because swings of such magnitude are very rare, I would say Labour is unlikely to get an overall majority. Not impossible, but unlikely.
A couple of other points:
1) It's not worth considering elections before 1885 for swing, due to the restricted electorate, and in many ways it isn't worth considering elections before 1918 due to the limited number of seats actually contested. In 1900, for example, 243 seats were returned unopposed.
2) This also solves the problem with 1918!
3) I would also note the swing in 1931 was fiendishly complicated as well, due to splits, electoral pacts and the economic crisis. So that swing is not much use as a comparison.
4) The 1945 general election was not only the only election since 1900 held in wartime* but brought an end to the longest parliament since the dissolution of the Long Parliament in 1660. It was also the last election at which multiple voting was allowed. I don't think the swing there tells us much either.
5) That means that there is only one election where there was a swing which - if replicated - would give Starmer's Labour a majority. The election concerned was 1997. That swing would give Starmer a majority of one.
That's a formidable task. It's remarkable it's even possible, but even allowing for Rishi Sunak being more deluded than a Republican Senator it seems to me in the words of Lord Peter Wimsey an improbable-possible.
*Technically 1918 was too but there was a ceasefire in effect, so I'm not counting that.
One thing that jumps out is that this exact argument could have been made in early 1997 to show that the chances of Blair getting a huge landslide majority in the then-imminent election were actually really tiny. After all, other than the elections you rule out, the largest prior comparable swing was just over 5%, in 1979. What are the odds of not only equaling or exceeding that... but near-doubling it? A straight swing from 1992 of 5% (which would be arguably at the top end of what Blair could expect) would see him with a majority of somewhere in the upper-thirties, and the Tories with 255-260 seats retained.
We have a small statistical sample (arguably too small for statistical conclusions to be reached), all of which have specific circumstances that could make them special in one way or another.
And were.
But again I remind you, even a gain like Blair's, an epochal event, would give Starmer a majority of 1. Even a seat gain of similar proportions gives a majority of just 30.
I think we're all looking at the polls and forgetting just how weak a position Labour are in right now.
At some point, one nation and Business/Thatcherite conservatives need to start to fight for control of the right, rather than bowing down to and toying with Trumpian populists. Today, they look like a dying breed.
Who on the right can stand up to Braverman, Farage and the divisive menagerie.
Who on the left can?
It will keep happening - indeed, it will grow - until someone in office gets a grip on migration.
This will shortly become Labour's problem. And putting your fingers in your ears isn't a strategy.
Immigration is an issue that largely concerns Tory and Reform voters. It is far less of a primary concern for everyone else. There was a very good piece on this in the FT at the end if last week.
Ian Wright us stepping down from Match of the Day. Can it be hoped that the ghastly Lineker will leave too.?
That is a shame. I rather like Ian Wright. He wears his heart on his sleeve, which I rather like.
Re Lineker - He is rather good at his job. What is your objection? Is it the money he costs or the fact that he tweaks the noses of politicians or that you don't think he should be allowed to while presenting on BBC? They seem to be the main reasons people object to him. Haven't seen anyone complain about the fact that he does a good job.
Lineker is a tad too smarmy for me, made worse by the ridiculous salary so not surprised he grates with those who don't like his politics, even if the level of their objection tends to the absurd.
I have a feeling that Lineker isn't particularly left wing. He's so familiar with the wind up merchant aspect of football, he simply can't resist baiting the gammons.
That dopamine rush hits hard. I've been taking notes.
But, if you get your kicks from winding up other people, it normally points to deeper rooted issues.
It's hard not to tbh. You make a detailed analysis of Rwanda/20mph/Israel and everyone loses their minds. Might as well embrace it.
On the subject of 20mph, I take it we've all accepted Vaughan Gething will be the next FM of the rotten Borough of Cymru?
Am I right in thinking he doesn't speak Welsh? If so, he would be the first First Minister not to speak it fluently.
It's a dead language, speaking Latin is more relevant and useful.
You ought ot have a holiday in Wales sometime. Listen to the bairns on the school run train up the coast from the Dovey and Barmouth estuaries. They seem very alive to me ...
I love hearing Gaelic when I visit Scotland but not Welsh in Wales.
I was expecting the article to be by @NickPalmer given the headline...
An interesting analysis, but drawing a conclusion rather different from mine. Because swings of such magnitude are very rare, I would say Labour is unlikely to get an overall majority. Not impossible, but unlikely.
A couple of other points:
1) It's not worth considering elections before 1885 for swing, due to the restricted electorate, and in many ways it isn't worth considering elections before 1918 due to the limited number of seats actually contested. In 1900, for example, 243 seats were returned unopposed.
2) This also solves the problem with 1918!
3) I would also note the swing in 1931 was fiendishly complicated as well, due to splits, electoral pacts and the economic crisis. So that swing is not much use as a comparison.
4) The 1945 general election was not only the only election since 1900 held in wartime* but brought an end to the longest parliament since the dissolution of the Long Parliament in 1660. It was also the last election at which multiple voting was allowed. I don't think the swing there tells us much either.
5) That means that there is only one election where there was a swing which - if replicated - would give Starmer's Labour a majority. The election concerned was 1997. That swing would give Starmer a majority of one.
That's a formidable task. It's remarkable it's even possible, but even allowing for Rishi Sunak being more deluded than a Republican Senator it seems to me in the words of Lord Peter Wimsey an improbable-possible.
*Technically 1918 was too but there was a ceasefire in effect, so I'm not counting that.
Your thesis is that historical precedent (or lack thereof) trumps polling. I am sceptical. I think polling trumps historical precedent.
There’s no magic about historical precedent. It’s just what has happened to happen. There isn’t a mechanism of action by which what has happened before constrains what will happen next time. If very large numbers of people are saying they will vote Labour, and only small numbers say Conservative, I think we have to believe them.
I think you're misunderstanding historical precedent. The point is not that 'because it was ever thus, it ever will be.' That's legal precedent. Historical precedent is, 'this is how our structures play out in the real world.' That incidentally includes polling precedent. You will notice we don't use that much and never from before 1992 because so many changes to methodology have taken place since then. (If we were, I'd point out that Labour had far larger leads than now in 1963 and came within an ace of losing the 1964 election. Even allowing for that, if memory serves Labour were frequently 16-20 points behind in the polls from 2008-10 and the electoral system helpfully still delivered them a hung Parliament on a mere 29% of the vote, although the Tories would be fools to expect a similar result on a similar share.)
It's also why I'm saying we should discount elections before 1945 in considering likely outcomes. I am pointing out that if we do such swings are extremely rare, and such seat gains as Labour require for a majority equally rare. Our system militates against it.
That doesn't mean such an outcome is impossible, merely that it shouldn't be favourite. Don't look at just the polls, look at the practicalities too.
I think your case is that such swings HAVE BEEN extremely rare, which isn’t the same as saying they ARE extremely rare. The world can change.
If we take the polling at face value, then this analysis of historical swings suggests the next election will have a record swing. That could be because we’ve had an unusual period of politics (Brexit, the oddities of 2017/9, the rise of the Brexit Party/Reform), including other unprecedented events (COVID-19, PM turnover, PM law-breaking, tax levels, immigration levels).
But maybe also people’s voting behaviours have changed. The idea that you can’t have large swings comes down to the idea that most people won’t change how they vote. The “practicalities” of which you speak are of getting people to vote for a different party than last time. Maybe, in the modern era, after some unprecedented referendums, in a world of social media, people are just much more changeable in how they vote. I note that two out of the three highest ever Conservative->Labour swings in by-elections have been in this Parliament, and three out of the four highest Conservative->LibDem swings too. Isn’t that evidence that the electorate has become “swingier”?
Yes, by definition because they have been rare they are rare. There is very little evidence that swings will be greater (although Scotland 2015 may be a canary in the coal mine, but we still need actual evidence).
Just to put your reply in a way I think you might appreciate, what you have effectively said is that because perpetual motion machines haven’t worked up to now doesn’t mean AI may not be about to change it.
No, that’s a terrible argument for why perpetual motion machines don’t work. Perpetual motion machines don’t work because of physics. We can show that without ever having to look at their track record in history.
That’s the difference here. There is no psephological principle equivalent to the laws of thermodynamics that mean double digit swings can’t happen.
Sigh.
We do however have this thing called the laws of mathematics.
(Actually I was quoting the editor of a scientific journal on FROG.)
On the subject of swings, when gathering figures for the table in the header, I was struck by the 1865 election.
Palmerston's Liberals lost 6.3% of the vote to the Tories and... saw their seat numbers increase by 13, while the Tories lost 9 seats (4 additional seats had been created).
(There appear to have been no other parties at that time because in 1865 it seems:
That every boy and every gal That’s born into the world alive Is either a little Liberal Or else a little Conservative)
I was expecting the article to be by @NickPalmer given the headline...
An interesting analysis, but drawing a conclusion rather different from mine. Because swings of such magnitude are very rare, I would say Labour is unlikely to get an overall majority. Not impossible, but unlikely.
A couple of other points:
1) It's not worth considering elections before 1885 for swing, due to the restricted electorate, and in many ways it isn't worth considering elections before 1918 due to the limited number of seats actually contested. In 1900, for example, 243 seats were returned unopposed.
2) This also solves the problem with 1918!
3) I would also note the swing in 1931 was fiendishly complicated as well, due to splits, electoral pacts and the economic crisis. So that swing is not much use as a comparison.
4) The 1945 general election was not only the only election since 1900 held in wartime* but brought an end to the longest parliament since the dissolution of the Long Parliament in 1660. It was also the last election at which multiple voting was allowed. I don't think the swing there tells us much either.
5) That means that there is only one election where there was a swing which - if replicated - would give Starmer's Labour a majority. The election concerned was 1997. That swing would give Starmer a majority of one.
That's a formidable task. It's remarkable it's even possible, but even allowing for Rishi Sunak being more deluded than a Republican Senator it seems to me in the words of Lord Peter Wimsey an improbable-possible.
*Technically 1918 was too but there was a ceasefire in effect, so I'm not counting that.
One thing that jumps out is that this exact argument could have been made in early 1997 to show that the chances of Blair getting a huge landslide majority in the then-imminent election were actually really tiny. After all, other than the elections you rule out, the largest prior comparable swing was just over 5%, in 1979. What are the odds of not only equaling or exceeding that... but near-doubling it? A straight swing from 1992 of 5% (which would be arguably at the top end of what Blair could expect) would see him with a majority of somewhere in the upper-thirties, and the Tories with 255-260 seats retained.
We have a small statistical sample (arguably too small for statistical conclusions to be reached), all of which have specific circumstances that could make them special in one way or another.
And were.
But again I remind you, even a gain like Blair's, an epochal event, would give Starmer a majority of 1. Even a seat gain of similar proportions gives a majority of just 30.
I think we're all looking at the polls and forgetting just how weak a position Labour are in right now.
Labour were weak at the 2019 election, but that doesn’t mean they have a weak position now.
When people go into the polling booth, they’re not given a slip of paper saying how they voted last time. It’s not more physically arduous to vote for a different party than the party you voted for last time. Elections are memoryless. It doesn’t matter how many you got last time; it matters how many people vote for you this time. And polling tell us how people are intending to vote this time.
I still think you are ascribing some mythical power to the last result that just isn’t there.
Ian Wright us stepping down from Match of the Day. Can it be hoped that the ghastly Lineker will leave too.?
That is a shame. I rather like Ian Wright. He wears his heart on his sleeve, which I rather like.
Re Lineker - He is rather good at his job. What is your objection? Is it the money he costs or the fact that he tweaks the noses of politicians or that you don't think he should be allowed to while presenting on BBC? They seem to be the main reasons people object to him. Haven't seen anyone complain about the fact that he does a good job.
Lineker is a tad too smarmy for me, made worse by the ridiculous salary so not surprised he grates with those who don't like his politics, even if the level of their objection tends to the absurd.
I have a feeling that Lineker isn't particularly left wing. He's so familiar with the wind up merchant aspect of football, he simply can't resist baiting the gammons.
That dopamine rush hits hard. I've been taking notes.
But, if you get your kicks from winding up other people, it normally points to deeper rooted issues.
It's hard not to tbh. You make a detailed analysis of Rwanda/20mph/Israel and everyone loses their minds. Might as well embrace it.
On the subject of 20mph, I take it we've all accepted Vaughan Gething will be the next FM of the rotten Borough of Cymru?
Am I right in thinking he doesn't speak Welsh? If so, he would be the first First Minister not to speak it fluently.
It's a dead language, speaking Latin is more relevant and useful.
You have not lived until you have tried to check a Welsh relative's Maths homework.
Ian Wright us stepping down from Match of the Day. Can it be hoped that the ghastly Lineker will leave too.?
That is a shame. I rather like Ian Wright. He wears his heart on his sleeve, which I rather like.
Re Lineker - He is rather good at his job. What is your objection? Is it the money he costs or the fact that he tweaks the noses of politicians or that you don't think he should be allowed to while presenting on BBC? They seem to be the main reasons people object to him. Haven't seen anyone complain about the fact that he does a good job.
Lineker is a tad too smarmy for me, made worse by the ridiculous salary so not surprised he grates with those who don't like his politics, even if the level of their objection tends to the absurd.
I have a feeling that Lineker isn't particularly left wing. He's so familiar with the wind up merchant aspect of football, he simply can't resist baiting the gammons.
That dopamine rush hits hard. I've been taking notes.
But, if you get your kicks from winding up other people, it normally points to deeper rooted issues.
It's hard not to tbh. You make a detailed analysis of Rwanda/20mph/Israel and everyone loses their minds. Might as well embrace it.
On the subject of 20mph, I take it we've all accepted Vaughan Gething will be the next FM of the rotten Borough of Cymru?
Am I right in thinking he doesn't speak Welsh? If so, he would be the first First Minister not to speak it fluently.
It's a dead language, speaking Latin is more relevant and useful.
Not in Wales it isn't.
The Welsh language was invented by somebody who was shit at Scrabble.
It’s just struck me that, in Dec 19, people on here who misheard Boris say ‘People of talent’ as ‘people of colour’ used that misunderstanding as evidence of his true colours - to restrict the immigration of non whites to the UK, all part of the secret fascist ideology.
Four years hence and we’ve seen the biggest annual influx of immigrants from non white countries of the world on record! Just goes to show, you can’t believe everything you misread
I was expecting the article to be by @NickPalmer given the headline...
An interesting analysis, but drawing a conclusion rather different from mine. Because swings of such magnitude are very rare, I would say Labour is unlikely to get an overall majority. Not impossible, but unlikely.
A couple of other points:
1) It's not worth considering elections before 1885 for swing, due to the restricted electorate, and in many ways it isn't worth considering elections before 1918 due to the limited number of seats actually contested. In 1900, for example, 243 seats were returned unopposed.
2) This also solves the problem with 1918!
3) I would also note the swing in 1931 was fiendishly complicated as well, due to splits, electoral pacts and the economic crisis. So that swing is not much use as a comparison.
4) The 1945 general election was not only the only election since 1900 held in wartime* but brought an end to the longest parliament since the dissolution of the Long Parliament in 1660. It was also the last election at which multiple voting was allowed. I don't think the swing there tells us much either.
5) That means that there is only one election where there was a swing which - if replicated - would give Starmer's Labour a majority. The election concerned was 1997. That swing would give Starmer a majority of one.
That's a formidable task. It's remarkable it's even possible, but even allowing for Rishi Sunak being more deluded than a Republican Senator it seems to me in the words of Lord Peter Wimsey an improbable-possible.
*Technically 1918 was too but there was a ceasefire in effect, so I'm not counting that.
Your thesis is that historical precedent (or lack thereof) trumps polling. I am sceptical. I think polling trumps historical precedent.
There’s no magic about historical precedent. It’s just what has happened to happen. There isn’t a mechanism of action by which what has happened before constrains what will happen next time. If very large numbers of people are saying they will vote Labour, and only small numbers say Conservative, I think we have to believe them.
I think you're misunderstanding historical precedent. The point is not that 'because it was ever thus, it ever will be.' That's legal precedent. Historical precedent is, 'this is how our structures play out in the real world.' That incidentally includes polling precedent. You will notice we don't use that much and never from before 1992 because so many changes to methodology have taken place since then. (If we were, I'd point out that Labour had far larger leads than now in 1963 and came within an ace of losing the 1964 election. Even allowing for that, if memory serves Labour were frequently 16-20 points behind in the polls from 2008-10 and the electoral system helpfully still delivered them a hung Parliament on a mere 29% of the vote, although the Tories would be fools to expect a similar result on a similar share.)
It's also why I'm saying we should discount elections before 1945 in considering likely outcomes. I am pointing out that if we do such swings are extremely rare, and such seat gains as Labour require for a majority equally rare. Our system militates against it.
That doesn't mean such an outcome is impossible, merely that it shouldn't be favourite. Don't look at just the polls, look at the practicalities too.
I think your case is that such swings HAVE BEEN extremely rare, which isn’t the same as saying they ARE extremely rare. The world can change.
If we take the polling at face value, then this analysis of historical swings suggests the next election will have a record swing. That could be because we’ve had an unusual period of politics (Brexit, the oddities of 2017/9, the rise of the Brexit Party/Reform), including other unprecedented events (COVID-19, PM turnover, PM law-breaking, tax levels, immigration levels).
But maybe also people’s voting behaviours have changed. The idea that you can’t have large swings comes down to the idea that most people won’t change how they vote. The “practicalities” of which you speak are of getting people to vote for a different party than last time. Maybe, in the modern era, after some unprecedented referendums, in a world of social media, people are just much more changeable in how they vote. I note that two out of the three highest ever Conservative->Labour swings in by-elections have been in this Parliament, and three out of the four highest Conservative->LibDem swings too. Isn’t that evidence that the electorate has become “swingier”?
Yes, by definition because they have been rare they are rare. There is very little evidence that swings will be greater (although Scotland 2015 may be a canary in the coal mine, but we still need actual evidence).
Just to put your reply in a way I think you might appreciate, what you have effectively said is that because perpetual motion machines haven’t worked up to now doesn’t mean AI may not be about to change it.
No, that’s a terrible argument for why perpetual motion machines don’t work. Perpetual motion machines don’t work because of physics. We can show that without ever having to look at their track record in history.
That’s the difference here. There is no psephological principle equivalent to the laws of thermodynamics that mean double digit swings can’t happen.
Sigh.
We do however have this thing called the laws of mathematics.
(Actually I was quoting the editor of a scientific journal on FROG.)
There is no law of mathematics being applied here. There is maybe a law of statistics, but you’d be torturing it to apply it here. Your sample size is way too small.
I was expecting the article to be by @NickPalmer given the headline...
An interesting analysis, but drawing a conclusion rather different from mine. Because swings of such magnitude are very rare, I would say Labour is unlikely to get an overall majority. Not impossible, but unlikely.
A couple of other points:
1) It's not worth considering elections before 1885 for swing, due to the restricted electorate, and in many ways it isn't worth considering elections before 1918 due to the limited number of seats actually contested. In 1900, for example, 243 seats were returned unopposed.
2) This also solves the problem with 1918!
3) I would also note the swing in 1931 was fiendishly complicated as well, due to splits, electoral pacts and the economic crisis. So that swing is not much use as a comparison.
4) The 1945 general election was not only the only election since 1900 held in wartime* but brought an end to the longest parliament since the dissolution of the Long Parliament in 1660. It was also the last election at which multiple voting was allowed. I don't think the swing there tells us much either.
5) That means that there is only one election where there was a swing which - if replicated - would give Starmer's Labour a majority. The election concerned was 1997. That swing would give Starmer a majority of one.
That's a formidable task. It's remarkable it's even possible, but even allowing for Rishi Sunak being more deluded than a Republican Senator it seems to me in the words of Lord Peter Wimsey an improbable-possible.
*Technically 1918 was too but there was a ceasefire in effect, so I'm not counting that.
One thing that jumps out is that this exact argument could have been made in early 1997 to show that the chances of Blair getting a huge landslide majority in the then-imminent election were actually really tiny. After all, other than the elections you rule out, the largest prior comparable swing was just over 5%, in 1979. What are the odds of not only equaling or exceeding that... but near-doubling it? A straight swing from 1992 of 5% (which would be arguably at the top end of what Blair could expect) would see him with a majority of somewhere in the upper-thirties, and the Tories with 255-260 seats retained.
We have a small statistical sample (arguably too small for statistical conclusions to be reached), all of which have specific circumstances that could make them special in one way or another.
And were.
But again I remind you, even a gain like Blair's, an epochal event, would give Starmer a majority of 1. Even a seat gain of similar proportions gives a majority of just 30.
I think we're all looking at the polls and forgetting just how weak a position Labour are in right now.
Labour were weak at the 2019 election, but that doesn’t mean they have a weak position now.
When people go into the polling booth, they’re not given a slip of paper saying how they voted last time. It’s not more physically arduous to vote for a different party than the party you voted for last time. Elections are memoryless. It doesn’t matter how many you got last time; it matters how many people vote for you this time. And polling tell us how people are intending to vote this time.
I still think you are ascribing some mythical power to the last result that just isn’t there.
No, I'm not, I'm talking about probabilities and statistics. Which you seem unable to grasp.
I think you and many others are guilty of wishful thinking.
I have repeatedly said it is POSSIBLE that Labour could win a majority but for a host of reasons it is UNLIKELY. I have also demonstrated the claims made for 2019 being unreliable are flawed and therefore should not be used as the basis for a betting strategy.
I could be wrong. This could be a 97 style reversal. Heck, it could be like Canada '93 if the Tories keep screwing up. But none of the reasons advanced make that probable.
See if you can make a good argument and I'll consider it.
I was expecting the article to be by @NickPalmer given the headline...
An interesting analysis, but drawing a conclusion rather different from mine. Because swings of such magnitude are very rare, I would say Labour is unlikely to get an overall majority. Not impossible, but unlikely.
A couple of other points:
1) It's not worth considering elections before 1885 for swing, due to the restricted electorate, and in many ways it isn't worth considering elections before 1918 due to the limited number of seats actually contested. In 1900, for example, 243 seats were returned unopposed.
2) This also solves the problem with 1918!
3) I would also note the swing in 1931 was fiendishly complicated as well, due to splits, electoral pacts and the economic crisis. So that swing is not much use as a comparison.
4) The 1945 general election was not only the only election since 1900 held in wartime* but brought an end to the longest parliament since the dissolution of the Long Parliament in 1660. It was also the last election at which multiple voting was allowed. I don't think the swing there tells us much either.
5) That means that there is only one election where there was a swing which - if replicated - would give Starmer's Labour a majority. The election concerned was 1997. That swing would give Starmer a majority of one.
That's a formidable task. It's remarkable it's even possible, but even allowing for Rishi Sunak being more deluded than a Republican Senator it seems to me in the words of Lord Peter Wimsey an improbable-possible.
*Technically 1918 was too but there was a ceasefire in effect, so I'm not counting that.
One thing that jumps out is that this exact argument could have been made in early 1997 to show that the chances of Blair getting a huge landslide majority in the then-imminent election were actually really tiny. After all, other than the elections you rule out, the largest prior comparable swing was just over 5%, in 1979. What are the odds of not only equaling or exceeding that... but near-doubling it? A straight swing from 1992 of 5% (which would be arguably at the top end of what Blair could expect) would see him with a majority of somewhere in the upper-thirties, and the Tories with 255-260 seats retained.
We have a small statistical sample (arguably too small for statistical conclusions to be reached), all of which have specific circumstances that could make them special in one way or another.
And were.
But again I remind you, even a gain like Blair's, an epochal event, would give Starmer a majority of 1. Even a seat gain of similar proportions gives a majority of just 30.
I think we're all looking at the polls and forgetting just how weak a position Labour are in right now.
This is what makes the coming year so fascinating.
I think I'm going to make a few posts explaining how a Labour landslide is nailed on, and a few setting out why I have a sneaking suspicion the Tories will win again.
That way I will be able to point to my stupendous Leonesque powers of prediction, by reference to the relevant posts.
I was expecting the article to be by @NickPalmer given the headline...
An interesting analysis, but drawing a conclusion rather different from mine. Because swings of such magnitude are very rare, I would say Labour is unlikely to get an overall majority. Not impossible, but unlikely.
A couple of other points:
1) It's not worth considering elections before 1885 for swing, due to the restricted electorate, and in many ways it isn't worth considering elections before 1918 due to the limited number of seats actually contested. In 1900, for example, 243 seats were returned unopposed.
2) This also solves the problem with 1918!
3) I would also note the swing in 1931 was fiendishly complicated as well, due to splits, electoral pacts and the economic crisis. So that swing is not much use as a comparison.
4) The 1945 general election was not only the only election since 1900 held in wartime* but brought an end to the longest parliament since the dissolution of the Long Parliament in 1660. It was also the last election at which multiple voting was allowed. I don't think the swing there tells us much either.
5) That means that there is only one election where there was a swing which - if replicated - would give Starmer's Labour a majority. The election concerned was 1997. That swing would give Starmer a majority of one.
That's a formidable task. It's remarkable it's even possible, but even allowing for Rishi Sunak being more deluded than a Republican Senator it seems to me in the words of Lord Peter Wimsey an improbable-possible.
*Technically 1918 was too but there was a ceasefire in effect, so I'm not counting that.
One thing that jumps out is that this exact argument could have been made in early 1997 to show that the chances of Blair getting a huge landslide majority in the then-imminent election were actually really tiny. After all, other than the elections you rule out, the largest prior comparable swing was just over 5%, in 1979. What are the odds of not only equaling or exceeding that... but near-doubling it? A straight swing from 1992 of 5% (which would be arguably at the top end of what Blair could expect) would see him with a majority of somewhere in the upper-thirties, and the Tories with 255-260 seats retained.
We have a small statistical sample (arguably too small for statistical conclusions to be reached), all of which have specific circumstances that could make them special in one way or another.
And were.
But again I remind you, even a gain like Blair's, an epochal event, would give Starmer a majority of 1. Even a seat gain of similar proportions gives a majority of just 30.
I think we're all looking at the polls and forgetting just how weak a position Labour are in right now.
I have to disagree, Uniform swing is unlikely to happen, more likely tactical voting in blue areas and the return to labour in large numbers in red wall. The averages may turn out like the polling.
Any thoughts on the Mone interview? Aside from it being very funny?
I am sure our hearts go out to her and her husband.
What will an incoming Lab Govt do about it?
Welcome her back?
'Mone says she previously supported the Labour Party, as did her family, but withdrew her support in 2009 after the prime minister, Gordon Brown, increased the top income tax rate to 50%'
The volte face on here when previously staunch Tory supporters, criticised in the most lurid terms, are suddenly commended for seeing the light and embracing Labour once it's back comfortably in office will be a wonder to behold.
Agreed but thats what SKS Fans are like
No principles at all
Would you refer yourself to Clause 1 of the Labour Party constitution? Quite simply they need to be elected to be able to do anything. Not declaring war on newspapers out of "principles" is one of the smarter things Starmer has done.
The hard left hate Starmer because he has made the party electable again. Getting elected is what the hard left hate the most, because the real world is about compromise and they equate compromise to selling out.
I was expecting the article to be by @NickPalmer given the headline...
An interesting analysis, but drawing a conclusion rather different from mine. Because swings of such magnitude are very rare, I would say Labour is unlikely to get an overall majority. Not impossible, but unlikely.
A couple of other points:
1) It's not worth considering elections before 1885 for swing, due to the restricted electorate, and in many ways it isn't worth considering elections before 1918 due to the limited number of seats actually contested. In 1900, for example, 243 seats were returned unopposed.
2) This also solves the problem with 1918!
3) I would also note the swing in 1931 was fiendishly complicated as well, due to splits, electoral pacts and the economic crisis. So that swing is not much use as a comparison.
4) The 1945 general election was not only the only election since 1900 held in wartime* but brought an end to the longest parliament since the dissolution of the Long Parliament in 1660. It was also the last election at which multiple voting was allowed. I don't think the swing there tells us much either.
5) That means that there is only one election where there was a swing which - if replicated - would give Starmer's Labour a majority. The election concerned was 1997. That swing would give Starmer a majority of one.
That's a formidable task. It's remarkable it's even possible, but even allowing for Rishi Sunak being more deluded than a Republican Senator it seems to me in the words of Lord Peter Wimsey an improbable-possible.
*Technically 1918 was too but there was a ceasefire in effect, so I'm not counting that.
One thing that jumps out is that this exact argument could have been made in early 1997 to show that the chances of Blair getting a huge landslide majority in the then-imminent election were actually really tiny. After all, other than the elections you rule out, the largest prior comparable swing was just over 5%, in 1979. What are the odds of not only equaling or exceeding that... but near-doubling it? A straight swing from 1992 of 5% (which would be arguably at the top end of what Blair could expect) would see him with a majority of somewhere in the upper-thirties, and the Tories with 255-260 seats retained.
We have a small statistical sample (arguably too small for statistical conclusions to be reached), all of which have specific circumstances that could make them special in one way or another.
And were.
But again I remind you, even a gain like Blair's, an epochal event, would give Starmer a majority of 1. Even a seat gain of similar proportions gives a majority of just 30.
I think we're all looking at the polls and forgetting just how weak a position Labour are in right now.
Labour were weak at the 2019 election, but that doesn’t mean they have a weak position now.
When people go into the polling booth, they’re not given a slip of paper saying how they voted last time. It’s not more physically arduous to vote for a different party than the party you voted for last time. Elections are memoryless. It doesn’t matter how many you got last time; it matters how many people vote for you this time. And polling tell us how people are intending to vote this time.
I still think you are ascribing some mythical power to the last result that just isn’t there.
No, I'm not, I'm talking about probabilities and statistics. Which you seem unable to grasp.
I think you and many others are guilty of wishful thinking.
I have repeatedly said it is POSSIBLE that Labour could win a majority but for a host of reasons it is UNLIKELY. I have also demonstrated the claims made for 2019 being unreliable are flawed and therefore should not be used as the basis for a betting strategy.
I could be wrong. This could be a 97 style reversal. Heck, it could be like Canada '93 if the Tories keep screwing up. But none of the reasons advanced make that probable.
See if you can make a good argument and I'll consider it.
It's a good challenge but requires consideration. I might have a go myself some time.
But one quick point: The only current evidence we have is the opinion polls, and how people have actually voted in recent by-elections and local elections. All of that points to a big Labour majority.
Why would any previous election or previous swing trump that?
I was expecting the article to be by @NickPalmer given the headline...
An interesting analysis, but drawing a conclusion rather different from mine. Because swings of such magnitude are very rare, I would say Labour is unlikely to get an overall majority. Not impossible, but unlikely.
A couple of other points:
1) It's not worth considering elections before 1885 for swing, due to the restricted electorate, and in many ways it isn't worth considering elections before 1918 due to the limited number of seats actually contested. In 1900, for example, 243 seats were returned unopposed.
2) This also solves the problem with 1918!
3) I would also note the swing in 1931 was fiendishly complicated as well, due to splits, electoral pacts and the economic crisis. So that swing is not much use as a comparison.
4) The 1945 general election was not only the only election since 1900 held in wartime* but brought an end to the longest parliament since the dissolution of the Long Parliament in 1660. It was also the last election at which multiple voting was allowed. I don't think the swing there tells us much either.
5) That means that there is only one election where there was a swing which - if replicated - would give Starmer's Labour a majority. The election concerned was 1997. That swing would give Starmer a majority of one.
That's a formidable task. It's remarkable it's even possible, but even allowing for Rishi Sunak being more deluded than a Republican Senator it seems to me in the words of Lord Peter Wimsey an improbable-possible.
*Technically 1918 was too but there was a ceasefire in effect, so I'm not counting that.
One thing that jumps out is that this exact argument could have been made in early 1997 to show that the chances of Blair getting a huge landslide majority in the then-imminent election were actually really tiny. After all, other than the elections you rule out, the largest prior comparable swing was just over 5%, in 1979. What are the odds of not only equaling or exceeding that... but near-doubling it? A straight swing from 1992 of 5% (which would be arguably at the top end of what Blair could expect) would see him with a majority of somewhere in the upper-thirties, and the Tories with 255-260 seats retained.
We have a small statistical sample (arguably too small for statistical conclusions to be reached), all of which have specific circumstances that could make them special in one way or another.
And were.
But again I remind you, even a gain like Blair's, an epochal event, would give Starmer a majority of 1. Even a seat gain of similar proportions gives a majority of just 30.
I think we're all looking at the polls and forgetting just how weak a position Labour are in right now.
Labour were weak at the 2019 election, but that doesn’t mean they have a weak position now.
When people go into the polling booth, they’re not given a slip of paper saying how they voted last time. It’s not more physically arduous to vote for a different party than the party you voted for last time. Elections are memoryless. It doesn’t matter how many you got last time; it matters how many people vote for you this time. And polling tell us how people are intending to vote this time.
I still think you are ascribing some mythical power to the last result that just isn’t there.
No, I'm not, I'm talking about probabilities and statistics. Which you seem unable to grasp.
I think you and many others are guilty of wishful thinking.
I have repeatedly said it is POSSIBLE that Labour could win a majority but for a host of reasons it is UNLIKELY. I have also demonstrated the claims made for 2019 being unreliable are flawed and therefore should not be used as the basis for a betting strategy.
I could be wrong. This could be a 97 style reversal. Heck, it could be like Canada '93 if the Tories keep screwing up. But none of the reasons advanced make that probable.
See if you can make a good argument and I'll consider it.
What’s the best evidence for how people are going to vote at the next election? I suggest it’s polling. What does the polling say? Massive Labour victory.
What’s the second best evidence for how people are going to vote at the next election? By-elections and local election results. What do these say? Massive Labour victory (and a good LD performance).
I’m happy to concede that historical trends suggest a large swing is unlikely. A note of caution has been sounded. Is that compelling evidence in the face of the polling and election evidence? No. Someone suggested upthread that they’d take NOM at 10:1. I can see that being maybe worthwhile. However, the actual odds for NOM are currently 9:2 and that seems foolhardy to me. But you can bet how you want.
In the past the main dividing line between conservative and Labour was class based. Hence swings tended to be small as there were two basic monolithic voting blocks.
Today the class based system has broken down into several voting blocks, for example the seven segments used by More in Common https://www.britainschoice.uk/segments/
As such both Conservatives and Labour have to appeal to a significantly bigger tent of voters to form a majority which brings its stresses and strains when trying to appeal specifically to one segment whilst not putting off another.
Thus it is possible now to have a larger swing if one segment moves party because of a particular focus (or non focus) on issues which they approve/disapprove.
It also makes the task of remaining in government more difficult as there are different political pressures as a result of the fragmentation.
Historic analysis of swings I would argue are not particularly relevant given the changing social and political dynamics of the population.
I think that's spot on. The old class-based analysis of voting led by people like Butler & Stokes is well past its sell-by date. Party loyalties (largely class-based) back in the seventies and before accounted for as much as 75% of voting habits; off the top of my head, I'd guess that's well below 50% now. The electorate is in a permanent state of flux, so pretty much anything is possible. And that's obviously not just a UK phenomenon - look at France over the last 10 years.
Labour do seem to have trimmed their sails to about 40% in a few polls recently, though.
It's not far off where Cameron was in December 2009, the year before the election, which led to a hung parliament.
The difference is that the Conservatives are in a worse position. Not that Labour are doing miles better.
But in 2010 the Lib Dems got 23%. If the LDs somehow surged to that level by the GE, there probably would be a hung parliament, with the Tories in third place!
There is a none zero chance of that happening. It would be interesting to calculate odds for that...
I was expecting the article to be by @NickPalmer given the headline...
An interesting analysis, but drawing a conclusion rather different from mine. Because swings of such magnitude are very rare, I would say Labour is unlikely to get an overall majority. Not impossible, but unlikely.
A couple of other points:
1) It's not worth considering elections before 1885 for swing, due to the restricted electorate, and in many ways it isn't worth considering elections before 1918 due to the limited number of seats actually contested. In 1900, for example, 243 seats were returned unopposed.
2) This also solves the problem with 1918!
3) I would also note the swing in 1931 was fiendishly complicated as well, due to splits, electoral pacts and the economic crisis. So that swing is not much use as a comparison.
4) The 1945 general election was not only the only election since 1900 held in wartime* but brought an end to the longest parliament since the dissolution of the Long Parliament in 1660. It was also the last election at which multiple voting was allowed. I don't think the swing there tells us much either.
5) That means that there is only one election where there was a swing which - if replicated - would give Starmer's Labour a majority. The election concerned was 1997. That swing would give Starmer a majority of one.
That's a formidable task. It's remarkable it's even possible, but even allowing for Rishi Sunak being more deluded than a Republican Senator it seems to me in the words of Lord Peter Wimsey an improbable-possible.
*Technically 1918 was too but there was a ceasefire in effect, so I'm not counting that.
One thing that jumps out is that this exact argument could have been made in early 1997 to show that the chances of Blair getting a huge landslide majority in the then-imminent election were actually really tiny. After all, other than the elections you rule out, the largest prior comparable swing was just over 5%, in 1979. What are the odds of not only equaling or exceeding that... but near-doubling it? A straight swing from 1992 of 5% (which would be arguably at the top end of what Blair could expect) would see him with a majority of somewhere in the upper-thirties, and the Tories with 255-260 seats retained.
We have a small statistical sample (arguably too small for statistical conclusions to be reached), all of which have specific circumstances that could make them special in one way or another.
And were.
But again I remind you, even a gain like Blair's, an epochal event, would give Starmer a majority of 1. Even a seat gain of similar proportions gives a majority of just 30.
I think we're all looking at the polls and forgetting just how weak a position Labour are in right now.
This is what makes the coming year so fascinating.
I think I'm going to make a few posts explaining how a Labour landslide is nailed on, and a few setting out why I have a sneaking suspicion the Tories will win again.
That way I will be able to point to my stupendous Leonesque powers of prediction, by reference to the relevant posts.
Always good to keep your options open!
2024 is full of uncertainty.
However at the moment LAB are huge favourites to win.
I was expecting the article to be by @NickPalmer given the headline...
An interesting analysis, but drawing a conclusion rather different from mine. Because swings of such magnitude are very rare, I would say Labour is unlikely to get an overall majority. Not impossible, but unlikely.
A couple of other points:
1) It's not worth considering elections before 1885 for swing, due to the restricted electorate, and in many ways it isn't worth considering elections before 1918 due to the limited number of seats actually contested. In 1900, for example, 243 seats were returned unopposed.
2) This also solves the problem with 1918!
3) I would also note the swing in 1931 was fiendishly complicated as well, due to splits, electoral pacts and the economic crisis. So that swing is not much use as a comparison.
4) The 1945 general election was not only the only election since 1900 held in wartime* but brought an end to the longest parliament since the dissolution of the Long Parliament in 1660. It was also the last election at which multiple voting was allowed. I don't think the swing there tells us much either.
5) That means that there is only one election where there was a swing which - if replicated - would give Starmer's Labour a majority. The election concerned was 1997. That swing would give Starmer a majority of one.
That's a formidable task. It's remarkable it's even possible, but even allowing for Rishi Sunak being more deluded than a Republican Senator it seems to me in the words of Lord Peter Wimsey an improbable-possible.
*Technically 1918 was too but there was a ceasefire in effect, so I'm not counting that.
Your thesis is that historical precedent (or lack thereof) trumps polling. I am sceptical. I think polling trumps historical precedent.
There’s no magic about historical precedent. It’s just what has happened to happen. There isn’t a mechanism of action by which what has happened before constrains what will happen next time. If very large numbers of people are saying they will vote Labour, and only small numbers say Conservative, I think we have to believe them.
I think you're misunderstanding historical precedent. The point is not that 'because it was ever thus, it ever will be.' That's legal precedent. Historical precedent is, 'this is how our structures play out in the real world.' That incidentally includes polling precedent. You will notice we don't use that much and never from before 1992 because so many changes to methodology have taken place since then. (If we were, I'd point out that Labour had far larger leads than now in 1963 and came within an ace of losing the 1964 election. Even allowing for that, if memory serves Labour were frequently 16-20 points behind in the polls from 2008-10 and the electoral system helpfully still delivered them a hung Parliament on a mere 29% of the vote, although the Tories would be fools to expect a similar result on a similar share.)
It's also why I'm saying we should discount elections before 1945 in considering likely outcomes. I am pointing out that if we do such swings are extremely rare, and such seat gains as Labour require for a majority equally rare. Our system militates against it.
That doesn't mean such an outcome is impossible, merely that it shouldn't be favourite. Don't look at just the polls, look at the practicalities too.
I think your case is that such swings HAVE BEEN extremely rare, which isn’t the same as saying they ARE extremely rare. The world can change.
If we take the polling at face value, then this analysis of historical swings suggests the next election will have a record swing. That could be because we’ve had an unusual period of politics (Brexit, the oddities of 2017/9, the rise of the Brexit Party/Reform), including other unprecedented events (COVID-19, PM turnover, PM law-breaking, tax levels, immigration levels).
But maybe also people’s voting behaviours have changed. The idea that you can’t have large swings comes down to the idea that most people won’t change how they vote. The “practicalities” of which you speak are of getting people to vote for a different party than last time. Maybe, in the modern era, after some unprecedented referendums, in a world of social media, people are just much more changeable in how they vote. I note that two out of the three highest ever Conservative->Labour swings in by-elections have been in this Parliament, and three out of the four highest Conservative->LibDem swings too. Isn’t that evidence that the electorate has become “swingier”?
Yes, by definition because they have been rare they are rare. There is very little evidence that swings will be greater (although Scotland 2015 may be a canary in the coal mine, but we still need actual evidence).
Just to put your reply in a way I think you might appreciate, what you have effectively said is that because perpetual motion machines haven’t worked up to now doesn’t mean AI may not be about to change it.
No, that’s a terrible argument for why perpetual motion machines don’t work. Perpetual motion machines don’t work because of physics. We can show that without ever having to look at their track record in history.
That’s the difference here. There is no psephological principle equivalent to the laws of thermodynamics that mean double digit swings can’t happen.
Sigh.
We do however have this thing called the laws of mathematics.
(Actually I was quoting the editor of a scientific journal on FROG.)
Err there's no such thing as the "laws of mathematics". Theorems and proofs are built on definitions and axioms.
Ian Wright us stepping down from Match of the Day. Can it be hoped that the ghastly Lineker will leave too.?
That is a shame. I rather like Ian Wright. He wears his heart on his sleeve, which I rather like.
Re Lineker - He is rather good at his job. What is your objection? Is it the money he costs or the fact that he tweaks the noses of politicians or that you don't think he should be allowed to while presenting on BBC? They seem to be the main reasons people object to him. Haven't seen anyone complain about the fact that he does a good job.
Lineker is a tad too smarmy for me, made worse by the ridiculous salary so not surprised he grates with those who don't like his politics, even if the level of their objection tends to the absurd.
I have a feeling that Lineker isn't particularly left wing. He's so familiar with the wind up merchant aspect of football, he simply can't resist baiting the gammons.
That dopamine rush hits hard. I've been taking notes.
But, if you get your kicks from winding up other people, it normally points to deeper rooted issues.
It's hard not to tbh. You make a detailed analysis of Rwanda/20mph/Israel and everyone loses their minds. Might as well embrace it.
On the subject of 20mph, I take it we've all accepted Vaughan Gething will be the next FM of the rotten Borough of Cymru?
Am I right in thinking he doesn't speak Welsh? If so, he would be the first First Minister not to speak it fluently.
It's a dead language, speaking Latin is more relevant and useful.
You ought ot have a holiday in Wales sometime. Listen to the bairns on the school run train up the coast from the Dovey and Barmouth estuaries. They seem very alive to me ...
Like Gaels on a smaller scale, Welsh speakers only learn their dead language to make tourists paranoid.
Sorry but that's complete rubbish. People want to speak it because it is their native tongue. How is it a dead language? The numbers have been declining but it is still something like 20% of people who are fluent. I always refused to learn as a child much to my Grandmother's disappointment. I remember Richard Osman's House Of Games asking some very well educated guests how many welsh speakers there were and the answers were in the ten of thousands!
Now I do have issues with Welsh language policy which can be a pain and you have parents wanting their kids to speak Welsh so they can access jobs that require people to be bilingual in the public sector. I also worry about kids not being educated through their mother tongue. But how can a language be dead if nearly a million people speak it?
As for the future I'm less sure. Pretty much everyone speaks English and if you are brought up bilingual there is less of a emotional reason to want it to survive. I do detect a certain envy among Scottish nationalists that the Welsh have a language of their own.
In the past the main dividing line between conservative and Labour was class based. Hence swings tended to be small as there were two basic monolithic voting blocks.
Today the class based system has broken down into several voting blocks, for example the seven segments used by More in Common https://www.britainschoice.uk/segments/
As such both Conservatives and Labour have to appeal to a significantly bigger tent of voters to form a majority which brings its stresses and strains when trying to appeal specifically to one segment whilst not putting off another.
Thus it is possible now to have a larger swing if one segment moves party because of a particular focus (or non focus) on issues which they approve/disapprove.
It also makes the task of remaining in government more difficult as there are different political pressures as a result of the fragmentation.
Historic analysis of swings I would argue are not particularly relevant given the changing social and political dynamics of the population.
I think that's spot on. The old class-based analysis of voting led by people like Butler & Stokes is well past its sell-by date. Party loyalties (largely class-based) back in the seventies and before accounted for as much as 75% of voting habits; off the top of my head, I'd guess that's well below 50% now. The electorate is in a permanent state of flux, so pretty much anything is possible. And that's obviously not just a UK phenomenon - look at France over the last 10 years.
Agreed. I think voters are more volatile than 50 years ago. Big swings are thus commoner.
Which is why I would be cautious about the possibility of some black swan event at the next election. Polling today can’t tell us about future events. But a big shift in polling wouldn’t have to be a Tory recovery. It could be a LD surge, a RefUK surge, a Green surge, a brand new party surge, an Alba surge… Those might make NOM more likely (although a RefUK surge would probably make a Lab majority more likely).
Ian Wright us stepping down from Match of the Day. Can it be hoped that the ghastly Lineker will leave too.?
That is a shame. I rather like Ian Wright. He wears his heart on his sleeve, which I rather like.
Re Lineker - He is rather good at his job. What is your objection? Is it the money he costs or the fact that he tweaks the noses of politicians or that you don't think he should be allowed to while presenting on BBC? They seem to be the main reasons people object to him. Haven't seen anyone complain about the fact that he does a good job.
Lineker is a tad too smarmy for me, made worse by the ridiculous salary so not surprised he grates with those who don't like his politics, even if the level of their objection tends to the absurd.
I have a feeling that Lineker isn't particularly left wing. He's so familiar with the wind up merchant aspect of football, he simply can't resist baiting the gammons.
That dopamine rush hits hard. I've been taking notes.
But, if you get your kicks from winding up other people, it normally points to deeper rooted issues.
It's hard not to tbh. You make a detailed analysis of Rwanda/20mph/Israel and everyone loses their minds. Might as well embrace it.
On the subject of 20mph, I take it we've all accepted Vaughan Gething will be the next FM of the rotten Borough of Cymru?
Am I right in thinking he doesn't speak Welsh? If so, he would be the first First Minister not to speak it fluently.
It's a dead language, speaking Latin is more relevant and useful.
Not in Wales it isn't.
The Welsh language was invented by somebody who was shit at Scrabble.
The bag had no "x"s and too many "l"s and "y"s
Ll is a tile in Scrabble Cymraeg. So, IIRC, is dd.
I was expecting the article to be by @NickPalmer given the headline...
An interesting analysis, but drawing a conclusion rather different from mine. Because swings of such magnitude are very rare, I would say Labour is unlikely to get an overall majority. Not impossible, but unlikely.
A couple of other points:
1) It's not worth considering elections before 1885 for swing, due to the restricted electorate, and in many ways it isn't worth considering elections before 1918 due to the limited number of seats actually contested. In 1900, for example, 243 seats were returned unopposed.
2) This also solves the problem with 1918!
3) I would also note the swing in 1931 was fiendishly complicated as well, due to splits, electoral pacts and the economic crisis. So that swing is not much use as a comparison.
4) The 1945 general election was not only the only election since 1900 held in wartime* but brought an end to the longest parliament since the dissolution of the Long Parliament in 1660. It was also the last election at which multiple voting was allowed. I don't think the swing there tells us much either.
5) That means that there is only one election where there was a swing which - if replicated - would give Starmer's Labour a majority. The election concerned was 1997. That swing would give Starmer a majority of one.
That's a formidable task. It's remarkable it's even possible, but even allowing for Rishi Sunak being more deluded than a Republican Senator it seems to me in the words of Lord Peter Wimsey an improbable-possible.
*Technically 1918 was too but there was a ceasefire in effect, so I'm not counting that.
Your thesis is that historical precedent (or lack thereof) trumps polling. I am sceptical. I think polling trumps historical precedent.
There’s no magic about historical precedent. It’s just what has happened to happen. There isn’t a mechanism of action by which what has happened before constrains what will happen next time. If very large numbers of people are saying they will vote Labour, and only small numbers say Conservative, I think we have to believe them.
I think you're misunderstanding historical precedent. The point is not that 'because it was ever thus, it ever will be.' That's legal precedent. Historical precedent is, 'this is how our structures play out in the real world.' That incidentally includes polling precedent. You will notice we don't use that much and never from before 1992 because so many changes to methodology have taken place since then. (If we were, I'd point out that Labour had far larger leads than now in 1963 and came within an ace of losing the 1964 election. Even allowing for that, if memory serves Labour were frequently 16-20 points behind in the polls from 2008-10 and the electoral system helpfully still delivered them a hung Parliament on a mere 29% of the vote, although the Tories would be fools to expect a similar result on a similar share.)
It's also why I'm saying we should discount elections before 1945 in considering likely outcomes. I am pointing out that if we do such swings are extremely rare, and such seat gains as Labour require for a majority equally rare. Our system militates against it.
That doesn't mean such an outcome is impossible, merely that it shouldn't be favourite. Don't look at just the polls, look at the practicalities too.
I think your case is that such swings HAVE BEEN extremely rare, which isn’t the same as saying they ARE extremely rare. The world can change.
If we take the polling at face value, then this analysis of historical swings suggests the next election will have a record swing. That could be because we’ve had an unusual period of politics (Brexit, the oddities of 2017/9, the rise of the Brexit Party/Reform), including other unprecedented events (COVID-19, PM turnover, PM law-breaking, tax levels, immigration levels).
But maybe also people’s voting behaviours have changed. The idea that you can’t have large swings comes down to the idea that most people won’t change how they vote. The “practicalities” of which you speak are of getting people to vote for a different party than last time. Maybe, in the modern era, after some unprecedented referendums, in a world of social media, people are just much more changeable in how they vote. I note that two out of the three highest ever Conservative->Labour swings in by-elections have been in this Parliament, and three out of the four highest Conservative->LibDem swings too. Isn’t that evidence that the electorate has become “swingier”?
Yes, by definition because they have been rare they are rare. There is very little evidence that swings will be greater (although Scotland 2015 may be a canary in the coal mine, but we still need actual evidence).
Just to put your reply in a way I think you might appreciate, what you have effectively said is that because perpetual motion machines haven’t worked up to now doesn’t mean AI may not be about to change it.
No, that’s a terrible argument for why perpetual motion machines don’t work. Perpetual motion machines don’t work because of physics. We can show that without ever having to look at their track record in history.
That’s the difference here. There is no psephological principle equivalent to the laws of thermodynamics that mean double digit swings can’t happen.
Sigh.
We do however have this thing called the laws of mathematics.
(Actually I was quoting the editor of a scientific journal on FROG.)
The laws of mathematics are very commendable, but the only law that applies in PB.com is the law of PB.com
Labour do seem to have trimmed their sails to about 40% in a few polls recently, though.
It's not far off where Cameron was in December 2009, the year before the election, which led to a hung parliament.
The difference is that the Conservatives are in a worse position. Not that Labour are doing miles better.
But in 2010 the Lib Dems got 23%. If the LDs somehow surged to that level by the GE, there probably would be a hung parliament, with the Tories in third place!
There is a none zero chance of that happening. It would be interesting to calculate odds for that...
I don’t think the LDs will poll 23% at the GE but I think there’s a decent chance they end up getting 16-17% with the vast majority of those votes distributed very efficiently in relation to Labour’s.
Labour do seem to have trimmed their sails to about 40% in a few polls recently, though.
It's not far off where Cameron was in December 2009, the year before the election, which led to a hung parliament.
The difference is that the Conservatives are in a worse position. Not that Labour are doing miles better.
But in 2010 the Lib Dems got 23%. If the LDs somehow surged to that level by the GE, there probably would be a hung parliament, with the Tories in third place!
There is a none zero chance of that happening. It would be interesting to calculate odds for that...
It would be a major scientific breakthrough* if you could calculate the odds for that.
I was expecting the article to be by @NickPalmer given the headline...
An interesting analysis, but drawing a conclusion rather different from mine. Because swings of such magnitude are very rare, I would say Labour is unlikely to get an overall majority. Not impossible, but unlikely.
A couple of other points:
1) It's not worth considering elections before 1885 for swing, due to the restricted electorate, and in many ways it isn't worth considering elections before 1918 due to the limited number of seats actually contested. In 1900, for example, 243 seats were returned unopposed.
2) This also solves the problem with 1918!
3) I would also note the swing in 1931 was fiendishly complicated as well, due to splits, electoral pacts and the economic crisis. So that swing is not much use as a comparison.
4) The 1945 general election was not only the only election since 1900 held in wartime* but brought an end to the longest parliament since the dissolution of the Long Parliament in 1660. It was also the last election at which multiple voting was allowed. I don't think the swing there tells us much either.
5) That means that there is only one election where there was a swing which - if replicated - would give Starmer's Labour a majority. The election concerned was 1997. That swing would give Starmer a majority of one.
That's a formidable task. It's remarkable it's even possible, but even allowing for Rishi Sunak being more deluded than a Republican Senator it seems to me in the words of Lord Peter Wimsey an improbable-possible.
*Technically 1918 was too but there was a ceasefire in effect, so I'm not counting that.
Your thesis is that historical precedent (or lack thereof) trumps polling. I am sceptical. I think polling trumps historical precedent.
There’s no magic about historical precedent. It’s just what has happened to happen. There isn’t a mechanism of action by which what has happened before constrains what will happen next time. If very large numbers of people are saying they will vote Labour, and only small numbers say Conservative, I think we have to believe them.
I think you're misunderstanding historical precedent. The point is not that 'because it was ever thus, it ever will be.' That's legal precedent. Historical precedent is, 'this is how our structures play out in the real world.' That incidentally includes polling precedent. You will notice we don't use that much and never from before 1992 because so many changes to methodology have taken place since then. (If we were, I'd point out that Labour had far larger leads than now in 1963 and came within an ace of losing the 1964 election. Even allowing for that, if memory serves Labour were frequently 16-20 points behind in the polls from 2008-10 and the electoral system helpfully still delivered them a hung Parliament on a mere 29% of the vote, although the Tories would be fools to expect a similar result on a similar share.)
It's also why I'm saying we should discount elections before 1945 in considering likely outcomes. I am pointing out that if we do such swings are extremely rare, and such seat gains as Labour require for a majority equally rare. Our system militates against it.
That doesn't mean such an outcome is impossible, merely that it shouldn't be favourite. Don't look at just the polls, look at the practicalities too.
I think your case is that such swings HAVE BEEN extremely rare, which isn’t the same as saying they ARE extremely rare. The world can change.
If we take the polling at face value, then this analysis of historical swings suggests the next election will have a record swing. That could be because we’ve had an unusual period of politics (Brexit, the oddities of 2017/9, the rise of the Brexit Party/Reform), including other unprecedented events (COVID-19, PM turnover, PM law-breaking, tax levels, immigration levels).
But maybe also people’s voting behaviours have changed. The idea that you can’t have large swings comes down to the idea that most people won’t change how they vote. The “practicalities” of which you speak are of getting people to vote for a different party than last time. Maybe, in the modern era, after some unprecedented referendums, in a world of social media, people are just much more changeable in how they vote. I note that two out of the three highest ever Conservative->Labour swings in by-elections have been in this Parliament, and three out of the four highest Conservative->LibDem swings too. Isn’t that evidence that the electorate has become “swingier”?
Yes, by definition because they have been rare they are rare. There is very little evidence that swings will be greater (although Scotland 2015 may be a canary in the coal mine, but we still need actual evidence).
Just to put your reply in a way I think you might appreciate, what you have effectively said is that because perpetual motion machines haven’t worked up to now doesn’t mean AI may not be about to change it.
No, that’s a terrible argument for why perpetual motion machines don’t work. Perpetual motion machines don’t work because of physics. We can show that without ever having to look at their track record in history.
That’s the difference here. There is no psephological principle equivalent to the laws of thermodynamics that mean double digit swings can’t happen.
Sigh.
We do however have this thing called the laws of mathematics.
(Actually I was quoting the editor of a scientific journal on FROG.)
Err there's no such thing as the "laws of mathematics". Theorems and proofs are built on definitions and axioms.
Maybe it's better to ask for a statement of these "laws of mathematics" and then evaluate them on that basis.
Sunak is reportedly a fan of mathematics. Maybe mathematics will reciprocate by keeping him in power. (That was a joke.)
I was expecting the article to be by @NickPalmer given the headline...
An interesting analysis, but drawing a conclusion rather different from mine. Because swings of such magnitude are very rare, I would say Labour is unlikely to get an overall majority. Not impossible, but unlikely.
A couple of other points:
1) It's not worth considering elections before 1885 for swing, due to the restricted electorate, and in many ways it isn't worth considering elections before 1918 due to the limited number of seats actually contested. In 1900, for example, 243 seats were returned unopposed.
2) This also solves the problem with 1918!
3) I would also note the swing in 1931 was fiendishly complicated as well, due to splits, electoral pacts and the economic crisis. So that swing is not much use as a comparison.
4) The 1945 general election was not only the only election since 1900 held in wartime* but brought an end to the longest parliament since the dissolution of the Long Parliament in 1660. It was also the last election at which multiple voting was allowed. I don't think the swing there tells us much either.
5) That means that there is only one election where there was a swing which - if replicated - would give Starmer's Labour a majority. The election concerned was 1997. That swing would give Starmer a majority of one.
That's a formidable task. It's remarkable it's even possible, but even allowing for Rishi Sunak being more deluded than a Republican Senator it seems to me in the words of Lord Peter Wimsey an improbable-possible.
*Technically 1918 was too but there was a ceasefire in effect, so I'm not counting that.
Your thesis is that historical precedent (or lack thereof) trumps polling. I am sceptical. I think polling trumps historical precedent.
There’s no magic about historical precedent. It’s just what has happened to happen. There isn’t a mechanism of action by which what has happened before constrains what will happen next time. If very large numbers of people are saying they will vote Labour, and only small numbers say Conservative, I think we have to believe them.
I think you're misunderstanding historical precedent. The point is not that 'because it was ever thus, it ever will be.' That's legal precedent. Historical precedent is, 'this is how our structures play out in the real world.' That incidentally includes polling precedent. You will notice we don't use that much and never from before 1992 because so many changes to methodology have taken place since then. (If we were, I'd point out that Labour had far larger leads than now in 1963 and came within an ace of losing the 1964 election. Even allowing for that, if memory serves Labour were frequently 16-20 points behind in the polls from 2008-10 and the electoral system helpfully still delivered them a hung Parliament on a mere 29% of the vote, although the Tories would be fools to expect a similar result on a similar share.)
It's also why I'm saying we should discount elections before 1945 in considering likely outcomes. I am pointing out that if we do such swings are extremely rare, and such seat gains as Labour require for a majority equally rare. Our system militates against it.
That doesn't mean such an outcome is impossible, merely that it shouldn't be favourite. Don't look at just the polls, look at the practicalities too.
I think your case is that such swings HAVE BEEN extremely rare, which isn’t the same as saying they ARE extremely rare. The world can change.
If we take the polling at face value, then this analysis of historical swings suggests the next election will have a record swing. That could be because we’ve had an unusual period of politics (Brexit, the oddities of 2017/9, the rise of the Brexit Party/Reform), including other unprecedented events (COVID-19, PM turnover, PM law-breaking, tax levels, immigration levels).
But maybe also people’s voting behaviours have changed. The idea that you can’t have large swings comes down to the idea that most people won’t change how they vote. The “practicalities” of which you speak are of getting people to vote for a different party than last time. Maybe, in the modern era, after some unprecedented referendums, in a world of social media, people are just much more changeable in how they vote. I note that two out of the three highest ever Conservative->Labour swings in by-elections have been in this Parliament, and three out of the four highest Conservative->LibDem swings too. Isn’t that evidence that the electorate has become “swingier”?
Yes, by definition because they have been rare they are rare. There is very little evidence that swings will be greater (although Scotland 2015 may be a canary in the coal mine, but we still need actual evidence).
Just to put your reply in a way I think you might appreciate, what you have effectively said is that because perpetual motion machines haven’t worked up to now doesn’t mean AI may not be about to change it.
No, that’s a terrible argument for why perpetual motion machines don’t work. Perpetual motion machines don’t work because of physics. We can show that without ever having to look at their track record in history.
That’s the difference here. There is no psephological principle equivalent to the laws of thermodynamics that mean double digit swings can’t happen.
Sigh.
We do however have this thing called the laws of mathematics.
(Actually I was quoting the editor of a scientific journal on FROG.)
The analogy with laws of thermodynamics is interesting. People do come up with systems that appear to break thermodynamics. The answer is always that there's some energy store that was missing from the initial analysis.
So what's the new energy store that breaks the law of swing dynamics? I'd go with the utter awfulness of the present government- I'd say they have failed more than Major or Brown, and I'm too young to do a Callaghan vs. Sunak comparison.
Assuming that the Conservatives lose to the extent that they deserve, how do Labour not get a chunky majority?
I was expecting the article to be by @NickPalmer given the headline...
An interesting analysis, but drawing a conclusion rather different from mine. Because swings of such magnitude are very rare, I would say Labour is unlikely to get an overall majority. Not impossible, but unlikely.
A couple of other points:
1) It's not worth considering elections before 1885 for swing, due to the restricted electorate, and in many ways it isn't worth considering elections before 1918 due to the limited number of seats actually contested. In 1900, for example, 243 seats were returned unopposed.
2) This also solves the problem with 1918!
3) I would also note the swing in 1931 was fiendishly complicated as well, due to splits, electoral pacts and the economic crisis. So that swing is not much use as a comparison.
4) The 1945 general election was not only the only election since 1900 held in wartime* but brought an end to the longest parliament since the dissolution of the Long Parliament in 1660. It was also the last election at which multiple voting was allowed. I don't think the swing there tells us much either.
5) That means that there is only one election where there was a swing which - if replicated - would give Starmer's Labour a majority. The election concerned was 1997. That swing would give Starmer a majority of one.
That's a formidable task. It's remarkable it's even possible, but even allowing for Rishi Sunak being more deluded than a Republican Senator it seems to me in the words of Lord Peter Wimsey an improbable-possible.
*Technically 1918 was too but there was a ceasefire in effect, so I'm not counting that.
One thing that jumps out is that this exact argument could have been made in early 1997 to show that the chances of Blair getting a huge landslide majority in the then-imminent election were actually really tiny. After all, other than the elections you rule out, the largest prior comparable swing was just over 5%, in 1979. What are the odds of not only equaling or exceeding that... but near-doubling it? A straight swing from 1992 of 5% (which would be arguably at the top end of what Blair could expect) would see him with a majority of somewhere in the upper-thirties, and the Tories with 255-260 seats retained.
We have a small statistical sample (arguably too small for statistical conclusions to be reached), all of which have specific circumstances that could make them special in one way or another.
And were.
But again I remind you, even a gain like Blair's, an epochal event, would give Starmer a majority of 1. Even a seat gain of similar proportions gives a majority of just 30.
I think we're all looking at the polls and forgetting just how weak a position Labour are in right now.
Labour were weak at the 2019 election, but that doesn’t mean they have a weak position now.
When people go into the polling booth, they’re not given a slip of paper saying how they voted last time. It’s not more physically arduous to vote for a different party than the party you voted for last time. Elections are memoryless. It doesn’t matter how many you got last time; it matters how many people vote for you this time. And polling tell us how people are intending to vote this time.
I still think you are ascribing some mythical power to the last result that just isn’t there.
No, I'm not, I'm talking about probabilities and statistics. Which you seem unable to grasp.
I think you and many others are guilty of wishful thinking.
I have repeatedly said it is POSSIBLE that Labour could win a majority but for a host of reasons it is UNLIKELY. I have also demonstrated the claims made for 2019 being unreliable are flawed and therefore should not be used as the basis for a betting strategy.
I could be wrong. This could be a 97 style reversal. Heck, it could be like Canada '93 if the Tories keep screwing up. But none of the reasons advanced make that probable.
See if you can make a good argument and I'll consider it.
What’s the best evidence for how people are going to vote at the next election? I suggest it’s polling. What does the polling say? Massive Labour victory.
What’s the second best evidence for how people are going to vote at the next election? By-elections and local election results. What do these say? Massive Labour victory (and a good LD performance).
I’m happy to concede that historical trends suggest a large swing is unlikely. A note of caution has been sounded. Is that compelling evidence in the face of the polling and election evidence? No. Someone suggested upthread that they’d take NOM at 10:1. I can see that being maybe worthwhile. However, the actual odds for NOM are currently 9:2 and that seems foolhardy to me. But you can bet how you want.
Large swings are historically rare.
Because the conditions for large swings are rare.
However, we can observe that the current conditions are those that favour large swings. Which means that simply looking at all past elections is actually the wrong data.
We have a long running, very tired government. Which is polling on core vote for a substantial period m, across multiple polling companies.
The next biggest indicator is tactical voting - are we seeing that in by-elections? If so, that means a massive increase in the efficiency of opposition votes.
Then comes the stay-at-home factor - Tory voters just not voting. This is harder to detect in by-elections.
If we see evidence of those 2, then it’s is 1997 time. Nailed on.
I was expecting the article to be by @NickPalmer given the headline...
An interesting analysis, but drawing a conclusion rather different from mine. Because swings of such magnitude are very rare, I would say Labour is unlikely to get an overall majority. Not impossible, but unlikely.
A couple of other points:
1) It's not worth considering elections before 1885 for swing, due to the restricted electorate, and in many ways it isn't worth considering elections before 1918 due to the limited number of seats actually contested. In 1900, for example, 243 seats were returned unopposed.
2) This also solves the problem with 1918!
3) I would also note the swing in 1931 was fiendishly complicated as well, due to splits, electoral pacts and the economic crisis. So that swing is not much use as a comparison.
4) The 1945 general election was not only the only election since 1900 held in wartime* but brought an end to the longest parliament since the dissolution of the Long Parliament in 1660. It was also the last election at which multiple voting was allowed. I don't think the swing there tells us much either.
5) That means that there is only one election where there was a swing which - if replicated - would give Starmer's Labour a majority. The election concerned was 1997. That swing would give Starmer a majority of one.
That's a formidable task. It's remarkable it's even possible, but even allowing for Rishi Sunak being more deluded than a Republican Senator it seems to me in the words of Lord Peter Wimsey an improbable-possible.
*Technically 1918 was too but there was a ceasefire in effect, so I'm not counting that.
Your thesis is that historical precedent (or lack thereof) trumps polling. I am sceptical. I think polling trumps historical precedent.
There’s no magic about historical precedent. It’s just what has happened to happen. There isn’t a mechanism of action by which what has happened before constrains what will happen next time. If very large numbers of people are saying they will vote Labour, and only small numbers say Conservative, I think we have to believe them.
I think you're misunderstanding historical precedent. The point is not that 'because it was ever thus, it ever will be.' That's legal precedent. Historical precedent is, 'this is how our structures play out in the real world.' That incidentally includes polling precedent. You will notice we don't use that much and never from before 1992 because so many changes to methodology have taken place since then. (If we were, I'd point out that Labour had far larger leads than now in 1963 and came within an ace of losing the 1964 election. Even allowing for that, if memory serves Labour were frequently 16-20 points behind in the polls from 2008-10 and the electoral system helpfully still delivered them a hung Parliament on a mere 29% of the vote, although the Tories would be fools to expect a similar result on a similar share.)
It's also why I'm saying we should discount elections before 1945 in considering likely outcomes. I am pointing out that if we do such swings are extremely rare, and such seat gains as Labour require for a majority equally rare. Our system militates against it.
That doesn't mean such an outcome is impossible, merely that it shouldn't be favourite. Don't look at just the polls, look at the practicalities too.
NB: The Labour leads in 1963 ranged from 8 to 20.5 points. This year they have ranged from 10 points to 30 points. Over 30% of the Labour leads this year have been in excess of the greatest Labour lead recorded in 1963.
I was expecting the article to be by @NickPalmer given the headline...
An interesting analysis, but drawing a conclusion rather different from mine. Because swings of such magnitude are very rare, I would say Labour is unlikely to get an overall majority. Not impossible, but unlikely.
A couple of other points:
1) It's not worth considering elections before 1885 for swing, due to the restricted electorate, and in many ways it isn't worth considering elections before 1918 due to the limited number of seats actually contested. In 1900, for example, 243 seats were returned unopposed.
2) This also solves the problem with 1918!
3) I would also note the swing in 1931 was fiendishly complicated as well, due to splits, electoral pacts and the economic crisis. So that swing is not much use as a comparison.
4) The 1945 general election was not only the only election since 1900 held in wartime* but brought an end to the longest parliament since the dissolution of the Long Parliament in 1660. It was also the last election at which multiple voting was allowed. I don't think the swing there tells us much either.
5) That means that there is only one election where there was a swing which - if replicated - would give Starmer's Labour a majority. The election concerned was 1997. That swing would give Starmer a majority of one.
That's a formidable task. It's remarkable it's even possible, but even allowing for Rishi Sunak being more deluded than a Republican Senator it seems to me in the words of Lord Peter Wimsey an improbable-possible.
*Technically 1918 was too but there was a ceasefire in effect, so I'm not counting that.
One thing that jumps out is that this exact argument could have been made in early 1997 to show that the chances of Blair getting a huge landslide majority in the then-imminent election were actually really tiny. After all, other than the elections you rule out, the largest prior comparable swing was just over 5%, in 1979. What are the odds of not only equaling or exceeding that... but near-doubling it? A straight swing from 1992 of 5% (which would be arguably at the top end of what Blair could expect) would see him with a majority of somewhere in the upper-thirties, and the Tories with 255-260 seats retained.
We have a small statistical sample (arguably too small for statistical conclusions to be reached), all of which have specific circumstances that could make them special in one way or another.
And were.
But again I remind you, even a gain like Blair's, an epochal event, would give Starmer a majority of 1. Even a seat gain of similar proportions gives a majority of just 30.
I think we're all looking at the polls and forgetting just how weak a position Labour are in right now.
Labour were weak at the 2019 election, but that doesn’t mean they have a weak position now.
When people go into the polling booth, they’re not given a slip of paper saying how they voted last time. It’s not more physically arduous to vote for a different party than the party you voted for last time. Elections are memoryless. It doesn’t matter how many you got last time; it matters how many people vote for you this time. And polling tell us how people are intending to vote this time.
I still think you are ascribing some mythical power to the last result that just isn’t there.
No, I'm not, I'm talking about probabilities and statistics. Which you seem unable to grasp.
I think you and many others are guilty of wishful thinking.
I have repeatedly said it is POSSIBLE that Labour could win a majority but for a host of reasons it is UNLIKELY. I have also demonstrated the claims made for 2019 being unreliable are flawed and therefore should not be used as the basis for a betting strategy.
I could be wrong. This could be a 97 style reversal. Heck, it could be like Canada '93 if the Tories keep screwing up. But none of the reasons advanced make that probable.
See if you can make a good argument and I'll consider it.
What’s the best evidence for how people are going to vote at the next election? I suggest it’s polling. What does the polling say? Massive Labour victory.
What’s the second best evidence for how people are going to vote at the next election? By-elections and local election results. What do these say? Massive Labour victory (and a good LD performance).
I’m happy to concede that historical trends suggest a large swing is unlikely. A note of caution has been sounded. Is that compelling evidence in the face of the polling and election evidence? No. Someone suggested upthread that they’d take NOM at 10:1. I can see that being maybe worthwhile. However, the actual odds for NOM are currently 9:2 and that seems foolhardy to me. But you can bet how you want.
Large swings are historically rare.
Because the conditions for large swings are rare.
However, we can observe that the current conditions are those that favour large swings. Which means that simply looking at all past elections is actually the wrong data.
We have a long running, very tired government. Which is polling on core vote for a substantial period m, across multiple polling companies.
The next biggest indicator is tactical voting - are we seeing that in by-elections? If so, that means a massive increase in the efficiency of opposition votes.
Then comes the stay-at-home factor - Tory voters just not voting. This is harder to detect in by-elections.
If we see evidence of those 2, then it’s is 1997 time. Nailed on.
1997 didn't really have tactical voting the way I expect it to play out in the next election.
Which means that I can easily see the Tories with less than 100 seats at the next election as some unexpected places return Lib Dem MPs...
At some point, one nation and Business/Thatcherite conservatives need to start to fight for control of the right, rather than bowing down to and toying with Trumpian populists. Today, they look like a dying breed.
Who on the right can stand up to Braverman, Farage and the divisive menagerie.
On topic. Many thanks for a concise, clear and fun header.
But can I cast doubt on “Even for Labour to emerge with a bare majority at the next General Election…it would require a Labour lead of over 5% on the new boundaries according to Electoral Calculus, thus a swing of more than 8.5%” with the theory, if tactical voting is precise to sneak over the line where needed, bigger swings to Labour here, lesser swings to Labour where not needed, the full 8.5% national swing won’t be required?
On topic. Many thanks for a concise, clear and fun header.
But can I cast doubt on “Even for Labour to emerge with a bare majority at the next General Election…it would require a Labour lead of over 5% on the new boundaries according to Electoral Calculus, thus a swing of more than 8.5%” with the theory, if tactical voting is precise to sneak over the line where needed, bigger swings to Labour here, lesser swings to Labour where not needed, the full 8.5% national swing won’t be required?
Thanks, and yes, fair point.
I never quite know how to use the Electoral Calculus 'tactical voting' feature, so I generally don't. What tactical voting percentages to put in, and what do they mean?
Also, my whole adult life tactical voting has been the dog that didn't bark.
UK is a terrible place to launch from. Because of the direction the earth spins it's best to launch in an easterly direction and go for an equatorial orbit. But east of UK is Russia (and China) and they get miffed if you launch missile-y things at them. So that doesn't fly (hah!).
But if you want a polar orbit and to launch North, Shetlands is ideal: it's water or ice all the way to the Pacific[1]. And if you want to surveil high-north or high-south latitudes, a polar orbit is good.
So it's a good little niche and we can exploit it. It's one of the only good things the Tories have done (see also small new railway stations).
Ian Wright us stepping down from Match of the Day. Can it be hoped that the ghastly Lineker will leave too.?
That is a shame. I rather like Ian Wright. He wears his heart on his sleeve, which I rather like.
Re Lineker - He is rather good at his job. What is your objection? Is it the money he costs or the fact that he tweaks the noses of politicians or that you don't think he should be allowed to while presenting on BBC? They seem to be the main reasons people object to him. Haven't seen anyone complain about the fact that he does a good job.
Lineker is a tad too smarmy for me, made worse by the ridiculous salary so not surprised he grates with those who don't like his politics, even if the level of their objection tends to the absurd.
I have a feeling that Lineker isn't particularly left wing. He's so familiar with the wind up merchant aspect of football, he simply can't resist baiting the gammons.
That dopamine rush hits hard. I've been taking notes.
But, if you get your kicks from winding up other people, it normally points to deeper rooted issues.
It's hard not to tbh. You make a detailed analysis of Rwanda/20mph/Israel and everyone loses their minds. Might as well embrace it.
On the subject of 20mph, I take it we've all accepted Vaughan Gething will be the next FM of the rotten Borough of Cymru?
Am I right in thinking he doesn't speak Welsh? If so, he would be the first First Minister not to speak it fluently.
It's a dead language, speaking Latin is more relevant and useful.
You ought ot have a holiday in Wales sometime. Listen to the bairns on the school run train up the coast from the Dovey and Barmouth estuaries. They seem very alive to me ...
Like Gaels on a smaller scale, Welsh speakers only learn their dead language to make tourists paranoid.
Sorry but that's complete rubbish. People want to speak it because it is their native tongue. How is it a dead language? The numbers have been declining but it is still something like 20% of people who are fluent. I always refused to learn as a child much to my Grandmother's disappointment. I remember Richard Osman's House Of Games asking some very well educated guests how many welsh speakers there were and the answers were in the ten of thousands!
Now I do have issues with Welsh language policy which can be a pain and you have parents wanting their kids to speak Welsh so they can access jobs that require people to be bilingual in the public sector. I also worry about kids not being educated through their mother tongue. But how can a language be dead if nearly a million people speak it?
As for the future I'm less sure. Pretty much everyone speaks English and if you are brought up bilingual there is less of a emotional reason to want it to survive. I do detect a certain envy among Scottish nationalists that the Welsh have a language of their own.
I didn't think the irony was that oblique. I was satirising whiny tourists going on about Gaelic road signs and 'rude' locals speaking their own language in pubs.
From memory, it's complex to launch from there, and also inefficient, but okay for polar orbits. IIRC there have to be a couple of zigzags to avoid oilfields. There's also a planned one on the mainland to the east of Durness.
Also from memory, I think Lockheed Martin are heavily involved with the Shetland one.
Given the increasing importance of space infrastructure / observation, a native launch site could become fairly important. Perhaps.
I was expecting the article to be by @NickPalmer given the headline...
An interesting analysis, but drawing a conclusion rather different from mine. Because swings of such magnitude are very rare, I would say Labour is unlikely to get an overall majority. Not impossible, but unlikely.
A couple of other points:
1) It's not worth considering elections before 1885 for swing, due to the restricted electorate, and in many ways it isn't worth considering elections before 1918 due to the limited number of seats actually contested. In 1900, for example, 243 seats were returned unopposed.
2) This also solves the problem with 1918!
3) I would also note the swing in 1931 was fiendishly complicated as well, due to splits, electoral pacts and the economic crisis. So that swing is not much use as a comparison.
4) The 1945 general election was not only the only election since 1900 held in wartime* but brought an end to the longest parliament since the dissolution of the Long Parliament in 1660. It was also the last election at which multiple voting was allowed. I don't think the swing there tells us much either.
5) That means that there is only one election where there was a swing which - if replicated - would give Starmer's Labour a majority. The election concerned was 1997. That swing would give Starmer a majority of one.
That's a formidable task. It's remarkable it's even possible, but even allowing for Rishi Sunak being more deluded than a Republican Senator it seems to me in the words of Lord Peter Wimsey an improbable-possible.
*Technically 1918 was too but there was a ceasefire in effect, so I'm not counting that.
Your thesis is that historical precedent (or lack thereof) trumps polling. I am sceptical. I think polling trumps historical precedent.
There’s no magic about historical precedent. It’s just what has happened to happen. There isn’t a mechanism of action by which what has happened before constrains what will happen next time. If very large numbers of people are saying they will vote Labour, and only small numbers say Conservative, I think we have to believe them.
I think you're misunderstanding historical precedent. The point is not that 'because it was ever thus, it ever will be.' That's legal precedent. Historical precedent is, 'this is how our structures play out in the real world.' That incidentally includes polling precedent. You will notice we don't use that much and never from before 1992 because so many changes to methodology have taken place since then. (If we were, I'd point out that Labour had far larger leads than now in 1963 and came within an ace of losing the 1964 election. Even allowing for that, if memory serves Labour were frequently 16-20 points behind in the polls from 2008-10 and the electoral system helpfully still delivered them a hung Parliament on a mere 29% of the vote, although the Tories would be fools to expect a similar result on a similar share.)
It's also why I'm saying we should discount elections before 1945 in considering likely outcomes. I am pointing out that if we do such swings are extremely rare, and such seat gains as Labour require for a majority equally rare. Our system militates against it.
That doesn't mean such an outcome is impossible, merely that it shouldn't be favourite. Don't look at just the polls, look at the practicalities too.
I think your case is that such swings HAVE BEEN extremely rare, which isn’t the same as saying they ARE extremely rare. The world can change.
If we take the polling at face value, then this analysis of historical swings suggests the next election will have a record swing. That could be because we’ve had an unusual period of politics (Brexit, the oddities of 2017/9, the rise of the Brexit Party/Reform), including other unprecedented events (COVID-19, PM turnover, PM law-breaking, tax levels, immigration levels).
But maybe also people’s voting behaviours have changed. The idea that you can’t have large swings comes down to the idea that most people won’t change how they vote. The “practicalities” of which you speak are of getting people to vote for a different party than last time. Maybe, in the modern era, after some unprecedented referendums, in a world of social media, people are just much more changeable in how they vote. I note that two out of the three highest ever Conservative->Labour swings in by-elections have been in this Parliament, and three out of the four highest Conservative->LibDem swings too. Isn’t that evidence that the electorate has become “swingier”?
Yes, by definition because they have been rare they are rare. There is very little evidence that swings will be greater (although Scotland 2015 may be a canary in the coal mine, but we still need actual evidence).
Just to put your reply in a way I think you might appreciate, what you have effectively said is that because perpetual motion machines haven’t worked up to now doesn’t mean AI may not be about to change it.
No, that’s a terrible argument for why perpetual motion machines don’t work. Perpetual motion machines don’t work because of physics. We can show that without ever having to look at their track record in history.
That’s the difference here. There is no psephological principle equivalent to the laws of thermodynamics that mean double digit swings can’t happen.
Sigh.
We do however have this thing called the laws of mathematics.
(Actually I was quoting the editor of a scientific journal on FROG.)
Err there's no such thing as the "laws of mathematics". Theorems and proofs are built on definitions and axioms.
Maybe it's better to ask for a statement of these "laws of mathematics" and then evaluate them on that basis.
Sunak is reportedly a fan of mathematics. Maybe mathematics will reciprocate by keeping him in power. (That was a joke.)
I have to say that I have severe doubts about Sunak having much grasp of mathematics at all. (Maybe he enjoys doing arithmetic, but that's really not the same thing.)
His assertion that encouraging social mixing in the Summer of 2020 (i.e. pre-vaccination) was fine - which he still claims to believe - suggests that he has no comprehension at all of the basic "Susceptible-Infected-Removed" model of epidemiology (which is obviously a simple practical example of applied mathematics).
Not quite on a level with Boris Johnson's inability to understand doubling-time as "the time it takes for something to double", but still placing Sunak pretty squarely among the innumerate majority of politicians.
Has it occurred to you that it will probably cause a spike in visitors to the Site? Imagine all those people googling Swingers Clubs and being directed here. Ah well, it will make a change from Russian Trolls.
They will be busy trying to figure out the secret code
At some point, one nation and Business/Thatcherite conservatives need to start to fight for control of the right, rather than bowing down to and toying with Trumpian populists. Today, they look like a dying breed.
Who on the right can stand up to Braverman, Farage and the divisive menagerie.
UK is a terrible place to launch from. Because of the direction the earth spins it's best to launch in an easterly direction and go for an equatorial orbit. But east of UK is Russia (and China) and they get miffed if you launch missile-y things at them. So that doesn't fly (hah!).
But if you want a polar orbit and to launch North, Shetlands is ideal: it's water or ice all the way to the Pacific[1]. And if you want to surveil high-north or high-south latitudes, a polar orbit is good.
So it's a good little niche and we can exploit it. It's one of the only good things the Tories have done.
Has it occurred to you that it will probably cause a spike in visitors to the Site? Imagine all those people googling Swingers Clubs and being directed here. Ah well, it will make a change from Russian Trolls.
They will be busy trying to figure out the secret code
Just wait till we start talking about gardening and what to plant out front. Now that really will confuse people.
Has it occurred to you that it will probably cause a spike in visitors to the Site? Imagine all those people googling Swingers Clubs and being directed here. Ah well, it will make a change from Russian Trolls.
They will be busy trying to figure out the secret code
Just wait till we start talking about gardening and what to plant out front. Now that really will confuse people.
I don't think that the government is either willing or able to do this, but imagine that every single illegal who enters the UK goes on a plane to Rwanda the following day, without fail.
That's not the plan, but even if it was it doesn't work.
The whole argument is that putting some people on a plane will stop all people getting in a boat.
One person from a plane getting on a boat nullifies the entire argument.
Not really
Let’s say that it stops 99 out of a hundred. Is that really a failure?
From memory, it's complex to launch from there, and also inefficient, but okay for polar orbits. IIRC there have to be a couple of zigzags to avoid oilfields. There's also a planned one on the mainland to the east of Durness.
Also from memory, I think Lockheed Martin are heavily involved with the Shetland one.
Given the increasing importance of space infrastructure / observation, a native launch site could become fairly important. Perhaps.
Personally, I can’t see any downsides to launching east from Southern England.
There’s a perfectly good country, there, to crash/land first stages on.
On a serious note - it seems likely that within a decade of 2, first stages will be like airliners - not a deadly missile, but a reliably reusable machine that needs a landing port.
Which changes the whole launch site positioning equation.
From memory, it's complex to launch from there, and also inefficient, but okay for polar orbits. IIRC there have to be a couple of zigzags to avoid oilfields. There's also a planned one on the mainland to the east of Durness.
Also from memory, I think Lockheed Martin are heavily involved with the Shetland one.
Given the increasing importance of space infrastructure / observation, a native launch site could become fairly important. Perhaps.
Oddly enough, I've been to that very spot - Lamba Ness - on a Shetland holiday, long before UK space was thought of as having a future. Must have been in one of the most northerly B&Bs in the UK ... we were having a walk and the old WW2 remains caught my eye so of course we went onto the Ness and had a look around. Turns out to have been a WW2 Chain Home radar site, the northernmost of them all. I suppose much the same reasons - clear views, nothing much more to the north, etc. etc. https://portal.historicenvironment.scot/hes/web/f?p=1505:200:::NO:RP:SEARCH_UNDERWAY:1 https://portal.historicenvironment.scot/designation/SM13097
Has it occurred to you that it will probably cause a spike in visitors to the Site? Imagine all those people googling Swingers Clubs and being directed here. Ah well, it will make a change from Russian Trolls.
They will be busy trying to figure out the secret code
Just wait till we start talking about gardening and what to plant out front. Now that really will confuse people.
Pampas grass, shirley?
That was so 1960s. Like pineapple hedgehogs. It's different now, I expect. Not that I know what it is.
Has it occurred to you that it will probably cause a spike in visitors to the Site? Imagine all those people googling Swingers Clubs and being directed here. Ah well, it will make a change from Russian Trolls.
Thanks. The header I posted on the Swingers Forum entitled 'Why I plan to lay the Tories' got a few accidental politicos too.
Theorem defined from the axioms of Euclidean geometry.
I'll take your word for it.
At what point does a theorem become a proven law - or does that not happen in Mathematics? (In which case aren't we simply talking semantics?)
Oh for once something I know about. A theorem in mathematics is derived or to be derived. Only Axioms are assumptions of which there are very very few in maths.
weather as well, though it is the best location from a location perspective for getting into orbit etc, seemingly. Plus liek nucleur weapons , they woudl prefer to blow up Scottish than take chance of blowing up English people.
Has it occurred to you that it will probably cause a spike in visitors to the Site? Imagine all those people googling Swingers Clubs and being directed here. Ah well, it will make a change from Russian Trolls.
They will be busy trying to figure out the secret code
Just wait till we start talking about gardening and what to plant out front. Now that really will confuse people.
Pampas grass, shirley?
That was so 1960s. Like pineapple hedgehogs. It's different now, I expect. Not that I know what it is.
I remember pineapple and cheese hedgehogs. Height of sophistication at your soiree even in the early 1970s!
On helicopters, Sunak is planning GE 24 to be like the great scene from Goodfellas, isn't he? Henry Hill (Starmer) drives around desperately trying to seal the deal, while Sunak tracks him menacingly in a helicopter trying to bring him down before it's done.
Theorem defined from the axioms of Euclidean geometry.
I'll take your word for it.
At what point does a theorem become a proven law - or does that not happen in Mathematics? (In which case aren't we simply talking semantics?)
Oh for once something I know about. A theorem in mathematics is derived or to be derived. Only Axioms are assumptions of which there are very very few in maths.
A theorem that has yet to be proved is just a conjecture, isn't it?
'Meanwhile, new analysis shows the doubling of the threshold means most people in large parts of the UK will no longer earn enough to live with a partner from abroad, creating a new north-south divide. Three-quarters of people can afford to bring a loved one from abroad, but under the new threshold, more than 60% will not be able to afford it, rising to 75% in the north-east of England.
People in the north-east, Yorkshire and the Humber, the north-west, east Midlands, Wales and Northern Ireland will be worst affected and the south-east will be least affected.
[...]
The government has left open the possibility that even families already living together in the UK under the existing rules could be split up or have to move abroad if they do not meet the new criteria when their visa comes up for renewal. The Home Office said it “will confirm more details in due course”.
Pardon my French, but I thought PBers who complained about immigration complained most about the Southeast and housing shortage etc. etc. there?
'Meanwhile, new analysis shows the doubling of the threshold means most people in large parts of the UK will no longer earn enough to live with a partner from abroad, creating a new north-south divide. Three-quarters of people can afford to bring a loved one from abroad, but under the new threshold, more than 60% will not be able to afford it, rising to 75% in the north-east of England.
People in the north-east, Yorkshire and the Humber, the north-west, east Midlands, Wales and Northern Ireland will be worst affected and the south-east will be least affected.
[...]
The government has left open the possibility that even families already living together in the UK under the existing rules could be split up or have to move abroad if they do not meet the new criteria when their visa comes up for renewal. The Home Office said it “will confirm more details in due course”.
Pardon my French, but I thought PBers who complained about immigration complained most about the Southeast and housing shortage etc. etc. there?
There's one thing I haven't quite understood about this idea of £38k being the minimum a couple needs to live on.
Is the state pension going to be raised to £19k per person? Did I miss that?
Has it occurred to you that it will probably cause a spike in visitors to the Site? Imagine all those people googling Swingers Clubs and being directed here. Ah well, it will make a change from Russian Trolls.
They will be busy trying to figure out the secret code
Just wait till we start talking about gardening and what to plant out front. Now that really will confuse people.
Pampas grass, shirley?
That was so 1960s. Like pineapple hedgehogs. It's different now, I expect. Not that I know what it is.
I remember pineapple and cheese hedgehogs. Height of sophistication at your soiree even in the early 1970s!
And baked Alaska for desert. Those were the days.
When British tanks and armoured cars and things were shiny green, too.
'Meanwhile, new analysis shows the doubling of the threshold means most people in large parts of the UK will no longer earn enough to live with a partner from abroad, creating a new north-south divide. Three-quarters of people can afford to bring a loved one from abroad, but under the new threshold, more than 60% will not be able to afford it, rising to 75% in the north-east of England.
People in the north-east, Yorkshire and the Humber, the north-west, east Midlands, Wales and Northern Ireland will be worst affected and the south-east will be least affected.
[...]
The government has left open the possibility that even families already living together in the UK under the existing rules could be split up or have to move abroad if they do not meet the new criteria when their visa comes up for renewal. The Home Office said it “will confirm more details in due course”.
Pardon my French, but I thought PBers who complained about immigration complained most about the Southeast and housing shortage etc. etc. there?
There's one thing I haven't quite understood about this idea of £38k being the minimum a couple needs to live on.
Is the state pension going to be raised to £19k per person? Did I miss that?
Me neither. Perhaps it is to do with them paying for medical and social stuff, what with not being proper Brits in the view of the Tories, or something.
Theorem defined from the axioms of Euclidean geometry.
I'll take your word for it.
At what point does a theorem become a proven law - or does that not happen in Mathematics? (In which case aren't we simply talking semantics?)
It's semantics. An axiom is, in one sense of 'law', a law - though perhaps the latter is sufficiently imprecise a term to be inappropriate in maths ?
I would say theorems are the mathematical equivalent to laws, and axioms are even more fundamental than that - perhaps the definitions that the laws need to state upfront in order to mean anything.
But anyway, laws are made to be broken, and mathematicians are generally not big fans of (for example) "exceptions that prove the rule".
'Meanwhile, new analysis shows the doubling of the threshold means most people in large parts of the UK will no longer earn enough to live with a partner from abroad, creating a new north-south divide. Three-quarters of people can afford to bring a loved one from abroad, but under the new threshold, more than 60% will not be able to afford it, rising to 75% in the north-east of England.
People in the north-east, Yorkshire and the Humber, the north-west, east Midlands, Wales and Northern Ireland will be worst affected and the south-east will be least affected.
[...]
The government has left open the possibility that even families already living together in the UK under the existing rules could be split up or have to move abroad if they do not meet the new criteria when their visa comes up for renewal. The Home Office said it “will confirm more details in due course”.
Pardon my French, but I thought PBers who complained about immigration complained most about the Southeast and housing shortage etc. etc. there?
There's one thing I haven't quite understood about this idea of £38k being the minimum a couple needs to live on.
Is the state pension going to be raised to £19k per person? Did I miss that?
Me neither. Perhaps it is to do with them paying for medical and social stuff, what with not being proper Brits in the view of the Tories, or something.
The new Tory criterion of Brits being "rich people"?
On topic. Many thanks for a concise, clear and fun header.
But can I cast doubt on “Even for Labour to emerge with a bare majority at the next General Election…it would require a Labour lead of over 5% on the new boundaries according to Electoral Calculus, thus a swing of more than 8.5%” with the theory, if tactical voting is precise to sneak over the line where needed, bigger swings to Labour here, lesser swings to Labour where not needed, the full 8.5% national swing won’t be required?
Thanks, and yes, fair point.
I never quite know how to use the Electoral Calculus 'tactical voting' feature, so I generally don't. What tactical voting percentages to put in, and what do they mean?
Also, my whole adult life tactical voting has been the dog that didn't bark.
Strong TV (third party squeezed to near zero) hasn't been a thing, sure. But one of my fave electoral facts is that the Conservative share of the vote barely moved between '79 and '92, or across '15 to '19. What did change was the distribution of non-Conservative voters; pretty efficient in '92 and '17, horrible in '83 and '19.
Even before the blues started going really Tonto, I reckon we were looking at LibLabNat fighting the opposition, not each other.
'Meanwhile, new analysis shows the doubling of the threshold means most people in large parts of the UK will no longer earn enough to live with a partner from abroad, creating a new north-south divide. Three-quarters of people can afford to bring a loved one from abroad, but under the new threshold, more than 60% will not be able to afford it, rising to 75% in the north-east of England.
People in the north-east, Yorkshire and the Humber, the north-west, east Midlands, Wales and Northern Ireland will be worst affected and the south-east will be least affected.
[...]
The government has left open the possibility that even families already living together in the UK under the existing rules could be split up or have to move abroad if they do not meet the new criteria when their visa comes up for renewal. The Home Office said it “will confirm more details in due course”.
Pardon my French, but I thought PBers who complained about immigration complained most about the Southeast and housing shortage etc. etc. there?
There's one thing I haven't quite understood about this idea of £38k being the minimum a couple needs to live on.
Is the state pension going to be raised to £19k per person? Did I miss that?
Me neither. Perhaps it is to do with them paying for medical and social stuff, what with not being proper Brits in the view of the Tories, or something.
The new Tory criterion of Brits being "rich people"?
The old one used to be "white people".
I don't much like either.
I really hate to think what it is doing to the universities, for instance. Especially with this malicious reluctance to say whether existing families are still OK.
'Meanwhile, new analysis shows the doubling of the threshold means most people in large parts of the UK will no longer earn enough to live with a partner from abroad, creating a new north-south divide. Three-quarters of people can afford to bring a loved one from abroad, but under the new threshold, more than 60% will not be able to afford it, rising to 75% in the north-east of England.
People in the north-east, Yorkshire and the Humber, the north-west, east Midlands, Wales and Northern Ireland will be worst affected and the south-east will be least affected.
[...]
The government has left open the possibility that even families already living together in the UK under the existing rules could be split up or have to move abroad if they do not meet the new criteria when their visa comes up for renewal. The Home Office said it “will confirm more details in due course”.
Pardon my French, but I thought PBers who complained about immigration complained most about the Southeast and housing shortage etc. etc. there?
There's one thing I haven't quite understood about this idea of £38k being the minimum a couple needs to live on.
Is the state pension going to be raised to £19k per person? Did I miss that?
Me neither. Perhaps it is to do with them paying for medical and social stuff, what with not being proper Brits in the view of the Tories, or something.
The new Tory criterion of Brits being "rich people"?
The old one used to be "white people".
I don't much like either.
I really hate to think what it is doing to the universities, for instance. Especially with this malicious reluctance to say whether existing families are still OK.
Look, 17.4 million people voted to send the forrin home. If they only earn £37k. It was literally on the ballot paper.
The pro-DeSantis group, Never Back Down, has been enveloped in turmoil in recent weeks. Two weeks ago, it fired three of its top officials, including the super PAC’s chief executive officer. The board chairman, former Nevada Attorney General Adam Laxalt, also left, as did the organization’s president, Chris Jankowski...
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I see LDs getting lots of the Tory seats making it harder for LAB to get over 50% of the seats.
If it's anything like the latest pavement parking legislation there will be an exception for "people who have owned the land since before the Wars of Independence".
(Although there's an arguable case against the apostrophe.)
How rare is a government and a party that has been so stupid, so damaging and so shamelessly dishonest?
It appears Lab have thrown everything to get Murdoch on SKS's side which would be good for him but the Mail/Express will be harder to persuade.
Under pressure i think Lab lead could plummet and hence the gains for LDs exceeding expectations.
Blue Tories cant win a Majority from here unless they abolish income tax!
That’s the difference here. There is no psephological principle equivalent to the laws of thermodynamics that mean double digit swings can’t happen.
Certainly the points you criticise Starmer for won't be enough, they are already baked into the polls.
Today the class based system has broken down into several voting blocks, for example the seven segments used by More in Common https://www.britainschoice.uk/segments/
As such both Conservatives and Labour have to appeal to a significantly bigger tent of voters to form a majority which brings its stresses and strains when trying to appeal specifically to one segment whilst not putting off another.
Thus it is possible now to have a larger swing if one segment moves party because of a particular focus (or non focus) on issues which they approve/disapprove.
It also makes the task of remaining in government more difficult as there are different political pressures as a result of the fragmentation.
Historic analysis of swings I would argue are not particularly relevant given the changing social and political dynamics of the population.
In short, making immigration a big issue will only really help Farage and Reform; I’m relieved I didn’t have the bet I fancied on the Greens to outpoll them now
But again I remind you, even a gain like Blair's, an epochal event, would give Starmer a majority of 1. Even a seat gain of similar proportions gives a majority of just 30.
I think we're all looking at the polls and forgetting just how weak a position Labour are in right now.
'Labour backs away from press reforms after Prince Harry’s phone-hacking court victory'
"The party has made it clear that Keir Starmer had no intention of reviving the second stage of the Leveson inquiry"
We do however have this thing called the laws of mathematics.
(Actually I was quoting the editor of a scientific journal on FROG.)
Palmerston's Liberals lost 6.3% of the vote to the Tories and... saw their seat numbers increase by 13, while the Tories lost 9 seats (4 additional seats had been created).
(There appear to have been no other parties at that time because in 1865 it seems:
That every boy and every gal
That’s born into the world alive
Is either a little Liberal
Or else a little Conservative)
When people go into the polling booth, they’re not given a slip of paper saying how they voted last time. It’s not more physically arduous to vote for a different party than the party you voted for last time. Elections are memoryless. It doesn’t matter how many you got last time; it matters how many people vote for you this time. And polling tell us how people are intending to vote this time.
I still think you are ascribing some mythical power to the last result that just isn’t there.
Four years hence and we’ve seen the biggest annual influx of immigrants from non white countries of the world on record! Just goes to show, you can’t believe everything you misread
I think you and many others are guilty of wishful thinking.
I have repeatedly said it is POSSIBLE that Labour could win a majority but for a host of reasons it is UNLIKELY. I have also demonstrated the claims made for 2019 being unreliable are flawed and therefore should not be used as the basis for a betting strategy.
I could be wrong. This could be a 97 style reversal. Heck, it could be like Canada '93 if the Tories keep screwing up. But none of the reasons advanced make that probable.
See if you can make a good argument and I'll consider it.
I think I'm going to make a few posts explaining how a Labour landslide is nailed on, and a few setting out why I have a sneaking suspicion the Tories will win again.
That way I will be able to point to my stupendous Leonesque powers of prediction, by reference to the relevant posts.
The hard left hate Starmer because he has made the party electable again. Getting elected is what the hard left hate the most, because the real world is about compromise and they equate compromise to selling out.
Consensus, not division.
But one quick point: The only current evidence we have is the opinion polls, and how people have actually voted in recent by-elections and local elections. All of that points to a big Labour majority.
Why would any previous election or previous swing trump that?
What’s the second best evidence for how people are going to vote at the next election? By-elections and local election results. What do these say? Massive Labour victory (and a good LD performance).
I’m happy to concede that historical trends suggest a large swing is unlikely. A note of caution has been sounded. Is that compelling evidence in the face of the polling and election evidence? No. Someone suggested upthread that they’d take NOM at 10:1. I can see that being maybe worthwhile. However, the actual odds for NOM are currently 9:2 and that seems foolhardy to me. But you can bet how you want.
2024 is full of uncertainty.
However at the moment LAB are huge favourites to win.
Now I do have issues with Welsh language policy which can be a pain and you have parents wanting their kids to speak Welsh so they can access jobs that require people to be bilingual in the public sector. I also worry about kids not being educated through their mother tongue. But how can a language be dead if nearly a million people speak it?
As for the future I'm less sure. Pretty much everyone speaks English and if you are brought up bilingual there is less of a emotional reason to want it to survive. I do detect a certain envy among Scottish nationalists that the Welsh have a language of their own.
What am I missing?
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-north-east-orkney-shetland-67741864
Which is why I would be cautious about the possibility of some black swan event at the next election. Polling today can’t tell us about future events. But a big shift in polling wouldn’t have to be a Tory recovery. It could be a LD surge, a RefUK surge, a Green surge, a brand new party surge, an Alba surge… Those might make NOM more likely (although a RefUK surge would probably make a Lab majority more likely).
(*Involving time-travel)
Sunak is reportedly a fan of mathematics. Maybe mathematics will reciprocate by keeping him in power. (That was a joke.)
So what's the new energy store that breaks the law of swing dynamics? I'd go with the utter awfulness of the present government- I'd say they have failed more than Major or Brown, and I'm too young to do a Callaghan vs. Sunak comparison.
Assuming that the Conservatives lose to the extent that they deserve, how do Labour not get a chunky majority?
Because the conditions for large swings are rare.
However, we can observe that the current conditions are those that favour large swings. Which means that simply looking at all past elections is actually the wrong data.
We have a long running, very tired government. Which is polling on core vote for a substantial period m, across multiple polling companies.
The next biggest indicator is tactical voting - are we seeing that in by-elections? If so, that means a massive increase in the efficiency of opposition votes.
Then comes the stay-at-home factor - Tory voters just not voting. This is harder to detect in by-elections.
If we see evidence of those 2, then it’s is 1997 time. Nailed on.
Over 30% of the Labour leads this year have been in excess of the greatest Labour lead recorded in 1963.
Which means that I can easily see the Tories with less than 100 seats at the next election as some unexpected places return Lib Dem MPs...
The brand is too powerful
Think of this like being the 1840s-1860s period.
Rishi Sunak intervened to stop officials scrapping £40 million contract that provides him with “VIP” helicopter rides
MoD planned to spend cash elsewhere
But head of RAF Squadron which runs choppers says this was “reversed at the request” of the PM
https://twitter.com/Gabriel_Pogrund/status/1736286797749993540
"...source confirmed reversal came at Sunak’s request shorty after Grant Shapps replaced Ben Wallace. "
But can I cast doubt on “Even for Labour to emerge with a bare majority at the next General Election…it would require a Labour lead of over 5% on the new boundaries according to Electoral Calculus, thus a swing of more than 8.5%” with the theory, if tactical voting is precise to sneak over the line where needed, bigger swings to Labour here, lesser swings to Labour where not needed, the full 8.5% national swing won’t be required?
I never quite know how to use the Electoral Calculus 'tactical voting' feature, so I generally don't. What tactical voting percentages to put in, and what do they mean?
Also, my whole adult life tactical voting has been the dog that didn't bark.
UK is a terrible place to launch from. Because of the direction the earth spins it's best to launch in an easterly direction and go for an equatorial orbit. But east of UK is Russia (and China) and they get miffed if you launch missile-y things at them. So that doesn't fly (hah!).
But if you want a polar orbit and to launch North, Shetlands is ideal: it's water or ice all the way to the Pacific[1]. And if you want to surveil high-north or high-south latitudes, a polar orbit is good.
So it's a good little niche and we can exploit it. It's one of the only good things the Tories have done (see also small new railway stations).
[1] https://www.pinterest.com/pin/map-centered-on-the-north-pole--694258098783861034/
I was satirising whiny tourists going on about Gaelic road signs and 'rude' locals speaking their own language in pubs.
Also from memory, I think Lockheed Martin are heavily involved with the Shetland one.
Given the increasing importance of space infrastructure / observation, a native launch site could become fairly important. Perhaps.
His assertion that encouraging social mixing in the Summer of 2020 (i.e. pre-vaccination) was fine - which he still claims to believe - suggests that he has no comprehension at all of the basic "Susceptible-Infected-Removed" model of epidemiology (which is obviously a simple practical example of applied mathematics).
Not quite on a level with Boris Johnson's inability to understand doubling-time as "the time it takes for something to double", but still placing Sunak pretty squarely among the innumerate majority of politicians.
Let’s say that it stops 99 out of a hundred. Is that really a failure?
There’s a perfectly good country, there, to crash/land first stages on.
On a serious note - it seems likely that within a decade of 2, first stages will be like airliners - not a deadly missile, but a reliably reusable machine that needs a landing port.
Which changes the whole launch site positioning equation.
At what point does a theorem become a proven law - or does that not happen in Mathematics? (In which case aren't we simply talking semantics?)
https://portal.historicenvironment.scot/hes/web/f?p=1505:200:::NO:RP:SEARCH_UNDERWAY:1
https://portal.historicenvironment.scot/designation/SM13097
And baked Alaska for desert. Those were the days.
Henry Hill (Starmer) drives around desperately trying to seal the deal, while Sunak tracks him menacingly in a helicopter trying to bring him down before it's done.
https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2023/dec/17/legal-action-planned-over-uk-cruel-income-threshold-visa-rules
'Meanwhile, new analysis shows the doubling of the threshold means most people in large parts of the UK will no longer earn enough to live with a partner from abroad, creating a new north-south divide. Three-quarters of people can afford to bring a loved one from abroad, but under the new threshold, more than 60% will not be able to afford it, rising to 75% in the north-east of England.
People in the north-east, Yorkshire and the Humber, the north-west, east Midlands, Wales and Northern Ireland will be worst affected and the south-east will be least affected.
[...]
The government has left open the possibility that even families already living together in the UK under the existing rules could be split up or have to move abroad if they do not meet the new criteria when their visa comes up for renewal. The Home Office said it “will confirm more details in due course”.
Pardon my French, but I thought PBers who complained about immigration complained most about the Southeast and housing shortage etc. etc. there?
An axiom is, in one sense of 'law', a law - though perhaps the latter is sufficiently imprecise a term to be inappropriate in maths ?
Is the state pension going to be raised to £19k per person? Did I miss that?
This government is doing the right thing by pursuing her in the courts and an incoming Labour government should continue with that approach
But anyway, laws are made to be broken, and mathematicians are generally not big fans of (for example) "exceptions that prove the rule".
To all those who used the pandemic to get rich quick:
We want our money back.
Labour will appointment a Covid Corruption Commissioner to come after you.
https://twitter.com/wesstreeting/status/1736354518181327017
The old one used to be "white people".
I don't much like either.
Even before the blues started going really Tonto, I reckon we were looking at LibLabNat fighting the opposition, not each other.
https://www.politico.com/news/2023/12/16/republican-strategist-jeff-roe-quits-pro-desantis-super-pac-amid-turmoil-00132164
Jeff Roe, a top strategist for the main super PAC supporting Ron DeSantis’ presidential campaign, announced his resignation from the group late Saturday — the latest in a string of departures from the organization.
The pro-DeSantis group, Never Back Down, has been enveloped in turmoil in recent weeks. Two weeks ago, it fired three of its top officials, including the super PAC’s chief executive officer. The board chairman, former Nevada Attorney General Adam Laxalt, also left, as did the organization’s president, Chris Jankowski...