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politicalbetting.com » Blog Archive » Suddenly polling aggregates become all the rage: Introducin
politicalbetting.com » Blog Archive » Suddenly polling aggregates become all the rage: Introducing the new monthly Populus-FT polling
At the start of the year I introduced the weekly PB YouGov polling average so we could better track the way opinion was moving and isolate key segments for analysis. Well the idea has caught on and today we see the launch of the Populus online monthly polling for the FT based on an overall sample of 14,000.
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I mean my ARSE gave them up for Lent some years ago and has never felt better since. I'd also like to thank my milkman's uncles third cousin best man for her unswerving support before her operation.
My undying thanks also go to Peter the Punter as a most worthy but unsuccessful nominee. His portrayal as a gin soaked, cross dresser and leather fetishist was unerringly lifelike and a warning to all PBers worldwide.
And before the tears begin to fall .... Thank you World !!
http://www.ijreview.com/2014/03/118668-remember-obama-mocking-romney-foreign-policy-question-2012-campaign/
With the strapline "Could this snide comment look any more foolish today?"
....yeah, joke's on you Mr President of the United States!!! Bet you wish you were Mitt now!
For the tories to get a majority Labour need to lose about 8%. At 0.2% in a week this is going to take a while. There is still time but only just.
I’d like to thank the UTC for his commitment to equality!
However the LibDem > Lab switch now has the kiss of Death. David Owen has publicly announced his participation.
"We haven’t got the detailed data yet but I’ve no doubt that when it is published it will provide a mine of information."
Just add up the numbers in the individual polls
On a less serious but nevertheless interesting note is this little story about a snake and a crocodile that wrestled one another for five hours before a victor emerged:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-26413101
Cameron is a fop but knows what sounds good (even if it isn't).
What would Ed say to Putin in a face-to-face? We'd need a translator to understand, but it would include a judge-led inquiry.
What would Putin say to Ed? Two teas, boy, and be quick about it
Matt cleverly joins two topics
I'm often reminded it's an imperfect world though on this glorious early spring morning in London you could for a moment almost imagine such a place existed.
Stodge's Twelfth Law states that in any crisis you have two effective options - everything or nothing. Doing anything in between is a recipe for failure. As far as Ukraine is concerned, the morning papers carry the usual anguished thrashing of the frustrated neocons who know their time has gone and lament the passing of Pax Americana.
The same is true for Vladimir Putin - had he demurred in the face of the ousting of Yanukovych and done nothing to support the ethnic Russians, he would have faced serious consequences.
We don't quite face those issues if we decide to do nothing - the appetite for intervention has long gone and, in truth, if Ukraine comes back under Russian influence, many will argue it's business as usual. Then again, it's an imperfect world.
Edit: It should be a matter of national priority that the UK controls more of it's energy needs. That means investment in renewables, nuclear, and shale gas. Anything and everything to keep the need for Russian supplies to a minimum.
Supporting a fellow european country threatened by clear naked militarist aggression is not the same as selling out our sovereignty to Brussels. On the contrary, standing up for others whose freedom is threatened by a tyrannical bully is one of things that makes me proud to be British.
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The sudden change in leadership plus the appearance of the ultra national party would naturally give rise to alarm in Russia and a desire/need to protect their interests/nationals in the Crimea.
Unless this escalates over the next few days/weeks, I would hope that there will be a gradual reduction in tension coupled with the stabilisation of the new Ukrainian government and a restatement of the agreements between Ukraine and Russia. Russia could then pull back their troops.
There will always be a tension in this area as access to a warm water port is essential to Russia's interests and the only real option is to base the fleet on Ukrainian territory.
My next piece will be pre-qualifying for Oz.
Whatever your viewpoint, it's one form of leadership - the other is trying to tinker in everything everywhere at once.
Senior Tories last night prompted an angry row with Labour by claiming Ed Miliband’s vote against military action in Syria helped embolden Russia to invade part of Ukraine.
Several prominent Conservatives suggested Mr Miliband’s ‘appeasement’ of Russia, a staunch ally of Syrian tyrant Bashar al Assad, had contributed to the current crisis.
Treasury minister Sajid Javid, a close ally of Chancellor George Osborne, said there was a ‘direct link between Miliband’s cynical vote against [the] Syria motion and Russia’s actions on Ukraine’, adding that this made the Labour leader ‘completely unfit to lead Britain’.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2571733/Was-Eds-Syria-vote-green-light-Putin-Tories-claim-Labour-leaders-vote-against-military-action-encouraged-Russia-invade.html#ixzz2utBxkwPa
Dan Rebellato @DanRebellato 1 hr
Half a league, half a league, / Half a league onward, / Into the valley of Death / Rode the strongly-worded letter of complaint. #crimea2014
The Crimea was always part of Russia. It was only in 1954 that Krushchev, on a whim, decided that it should be part of the Ukrainian Soviet Federation. It is Russian speaking and thinking. It would be as if Northumberland had for some bizarre administrative reason become part of Scotland in the 1950s and the English deciding, upon Scottish independence, that actually they still consider it English – as do the people of Northumberland.
The USSR was defeated not by guns or the military, but because the West was so superior economically. If that is no longer the case, as if guys like Assad and Putin can operate without fear or worry, then we live in very dangerous times...
1. Over the past twenty years Russia has signed numerous treaties guaranteeing Ukraine borders, one of the first of which was in return for Ukraine surrendering her nuclear arsenal. A treaty also signed by the US and UK.
2. You note Russian "interests/nationals". Russia as an interest in the naval base and allowed limited military facilities but thy remain in Ukrainian sovereign territory. More importantly ethnic Russians in Crimea are Ukrainian citizens and not Russian nationals.
3. Russia has no inherent right to a warm water port. If allowed, as it presently is, their status is that of a guest of a friendly neighbour not that of an occupying power enforcing "Russia's interests".
http://blog.whatscotlandthinks.org/2014/03/200-days-to-go/
What would be the implications* if Scotland voted YES but, by a very large margin, Dumfries & Galloway voted to remain part of England. Surely there would be a moral case for allowing self-determination?
* I know none in reality, but please play along
What hope for future nuclear disarmament is there if the US and UK abrogate so blatantly the terms of such agreements ?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_weapons_and_Ukraine
The history of the 20th Century shows what happens when disaffected minorities are ignored within larger states. IF the population of the Crimea, in a free and fair referendum, were to vote to join Russia rather than the Ukraine, that would have to be respected internationally as we would expect the international community to recognise the vote if Scotland votes to leave the United Kingdom.
Whatever the history of the Crimea, if the population is dragooned into being governed (however loosely) from Kiev by a Government with which it feels no sense of loyalty, then that is only storing up trouble.
If you establish the principle that Russia can unilaterally intervene to protect people of its ethnicity/language when the Russian state itself is not threatened then we are in very dangerous territory
Do you think the same re Berwick , Carlisle etc is also applicable
Indeed we continually bend and stretch to breaking point the treaties we have signed by our continual involvement in the affairs of other countries up to and including armed invasion or bombing campaigns. The first decade of this century ensured that we would never be taken seriously by the rest of the world when we pontificated about international treaties or the rule of law.
Paddy Power's Money back special on the supreme Novices means that by backing Irving to win you effectively get a 5.0 E/W 1 point stake bet for a 2 pt win bet placed at 3.0 (2/1)
The horse is 3.65/3.7 on Betfair so this indicates value.
Vautour is also value for this offer but not by as much I think.
In fact its even better value than a 4-1 E/W bet as the E/W bet only pays out 3 places.
That's utterly different from what Russia is doing, which is messing about in a defined foreign country, breaching treaties, just because it can. The Crimea has never had a referendum to say it wants to separate, and until that happens, Russia has no rights or control over it.
I know the left hates the British Empire, and the rights of the Falklanders et al, but theres some utter doublethink to warp that to supporting homophobia belligerent rulers like Putin.
As a country which has decolonised lots of places I'd have thought it would be better to look at the process and recognise things are probably easier when the borders are drawn as close as possible to the ethnic make up of the country. The Ukraine's borders aren't.
[A character in Dragon Age: Origins has the name, variously pronounced Berrick and Ber-wick].
It's a bit of a myth that Monmouthshire was annexed by Wales. It's status was in fact ambiguous for four centuries, muddied by the fact that, because the two countries share (unlike Scotland and NI) the same legal system, there was no real incentive to clarify. But geographically it's a Welsh county - lying west of the Wye, the traditional watershed. Many of the place names are Welsh so it's easy to make the case that culturally/ethnically it's also Welsh. The 1974 Act arguably clarified what has always been so.
If you seriously believe that Foreign Office intervention in Ukraine amounted to more than a very marginal interest and certainly nothing in comparison to Putin, then I suggest you look to re-education in a Ukip camp.
Neither do I concede that mistakes of the past, even recent past, allow us to negate treaty obligations freely given, especially in relation to nuclear disarmament.
You might consider the UK is damaged goods but assuredly most citizens of Ukraine think the opposite.
Will the anti-frackers still support Putin?
And you have no idea what most citizens of the Ukraine believe. All you know is what a few thousand in Kiev believe. You certainly seem to be happy to ignore the wishes of a large portion of the East and South of the region who have made very clear what they want.
The hypocrisy of those attacking Russia whilst trying to claim the moral high ground after what the UK has done to North Africa and the Middle East in the last couple of decades is quite breathtaking.
I think you are wrong to try and cast this debate on left-right lines. Many of us just don't know - and, despite our political differences, come on here to help us think about it, knowing that the intellect of the average PBer is far higher than the average person.
*This may also have something to do with the fact that one side of my family is from Eastern Monmouthshire, and we consider ourselves English.
I think the whole Ukranian episode would proceed a lot better if we all stopped moral posturing and just recognised the facts on the ground and proceeded from there.
http://www.economist.com/news/britain/21596525-scotlands-independence-referendum-more-booty-canny-folk-shetland-and-orkney
Putin needs to be challenged. He will not turn back unless the bully in him is confronted.
If that means full cultural and economic sanctions by the EU and the US and other countries against Putin's expansionism, then so be it.
And yes before anyone asks, military aid and support to Ukraine and other east European nations threatened with annexation by the Russian bear.
Appeasement of Putin will only embolden him for future conquests.
Makes a difference from a few days ago when some people were hero-worshipping Baroness Aston.
It is the tragedy of the Eurozone that the Brussels bureaucrats believe administrative unity can replace this. There is no Eurozone demos and at some point the Germans will not take on the debts of the bankrupt periphery. Democracy requires a demos to be viable – otherwise you get the tyranny of a majority over an ethnically distinct minority.
Maybe countries like Ukraine, Belgium, etc should just split and the two halves go their natural way with their brethren. I wonder how many such countries there are?
Likewise Scotland if the majority no longer feel they share an ethnic/cultural identity with the rest of the UK.
Or maybe it would just be more realistic to regonise the USSR disintegrated with some daft borders leaving lots of people living in the wrong state and see if there's a better way to correct the faults.
The simplest of simple facts is that Putin is striving to annex vast swathes of sovereign Ukraine. The Russian bear is on the march.
As someone notes below, the markets - which not even Putin can buck - are already hammering Russia. That may be the most effective weapon there is. And this has happened on the cusp of spring, not in deepest winter, which makes Russia's grip on gas supplies less telling than it could have been.
Not sure which day I'll be able to fit in tossing a couple of cabers this week.
'having been ruled by Nordic kings until the late 15th century, Shetland and Orkney share little of the Celtic culture that defines much Scottish nationalism. They do not wear kilts or toss the caber. They also lack much sense of Scottish nationhood. Scottish saltires are almost as hard to find on the islands as the union flag—rather it is their own flags, Scandinavian-style crosses on blue and red backgrounds, that billow from trawlers and flagstaffs. Begrudgingly, the SNP suggested the islanders should be free to set their own course—and this has fuelled a fresh debate about devolution which could have great consequences for them and other local communities, however the referendum turns out.'
Interestingly the Shetland flag which I assume they're referring to was designed by a Scottish Nationalist.
The Ukraine as it is configured today is an artificial relic of the Soviet Union and in no way reflects the wishes of the peoples it contains. As such they have a right to self determination and the country should be partitioned to allow the south and east to either form an independent country or join the Russian Federation if that is what they want.
This is the morally and politically right thing to do.
As I said the hypocrisy of those trying to attack the Russians over this is remarkable.
As I noted last night, we must be mindful that once again we do have to swallow the words of Winston Churchill :
"Thou art been weighed in the balance and been found wanting."
You don't know that the South/East of Ukraine want to be part of Russia, because no ones actually asked them.
Some say it hasn't panned out the way he predicted, others like myself would say he was extremely accurate, not only on this matter but also on the ever increasing influence of the EU on British life
The simplest of truths is that the West has striven to undermine Russia in its own backyard and is now in no position to complain when they play the same game.