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Your morning must read – politicalbetting.com

SystemSystem Posts: 12,213
edited June 8 in General
Your morning must read – politicalbetting.com

Thought it would be useful to do a quick explainer of how our voting intent methodology works and how it’s changed. There’s a full article here from the time (https://t.co/aaqBZHkVMp) but to explain it simply…

Read the full story here

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Comments

  • NigelbNigelb Posts: 72,175
    Hunt on R4 just now was promising an annual 2% productivity improvement in public services if re-elected.

    LOL.
  • EabhalEabhal Posts: 8,951
    FPT:

    On the idea that Labour voting intention is skin deep, check this out:

    https://x.com/LukeTryl/status/1796075704292905149

    Based on current vote intention, Tory and Labour voters have exactly the same sentiments towards a Tory or Labour victory, respectively. +31/-30.

    What's interesting is that levels of unhappiness for a Trump victory are not miles apart (-16/-23). But Reform voters (+7) would actually welcome it.

    The remaining Conservative voters are still "normal", in that they exist in a world where Trump winning is a bad thing. On that measure, even current Conservative voters are over 3 times closer along the political spectrum to Labour than they are to Reform.
  • FF43FF43 Posts: 17,239

    Eabhal said:

    The tories in this thread are flying on wishful thinking. Wow. That is not what I expected from a betting site 🤯🤯🤯🤯 you guys are moving imaginary armies around on a map.

    You mean we intend to give you a fight, rather than just give up and surrender now?

    Get used to it. We're not French.
    That kind of attitude sums it all up really. The Dunkirk evacuation only happened because the French managed to hold off 7 German divisions at Lille. And Verdun?

    I suppose the alternative history has battalions of Boomers bounding through the bocage.
    Chortle. What I find hilarious is how jittery Labour posters get when their aura of invincibility is challenged for even a second.

    Why?

    Because they know it's built on sand. They know that their support may be a mile wide but it's an inch deep. They know the strategy is to allow voters to project onto SKS whatever they like. They know they don't really know what Starmer plans to do when he gets in office. And they know that their best hope to keep their coalition together is to keep the focus entirely on the Tories and keep them entirely and totally demoralised so they win by default.

    We know your game plan, and increasingly voters are waking up to it too.
    Elections are competitive zero sum games. You only need to be an inch deeper than the other guy. Mile wide and an inch deep is the best possible winning strategy.

    It does mean however that if Labour get a landslide this time they could lose it all in the subsequent election.
  • NigelbNigelb Posts: 72,175
    edited May 30

    Nigelb said:

    Hunt on R4 just now was promising an annual 2% productivity improvement in public services if re-elected.

    LOL.

    Sort of makes you ask why he's not doing it now.
    Sheer carelessness, I suppose.

    It would be too cynical, of course, to suggest that he's setting an impossible target for Reeves.
  • eekeek Posts: 28,585

    Worth posting the last Opinium poll

    Labour leads by 14 points

    Labour: 41%
    Conservatives: 27%
    Reform UK: 10%
    Lib Dems: 10%
    Green: 7%
    SNP: 2%
    Others: 1%
    1,464 respondents

    Now while the Tory figure here is high it's the Labour figure that is low.

    But it still gives Labour a 200 seat majority and puts the Tories on a far worse result than 97 albeit with 160 seats they could rebuild from there.
  • Casino_RoyaleCasino_Royale Posts: 60,693
    According to Stodge, who I trust, pollsters are predicting 72-78% turnout, which is utterly massive. You can get 14/1 odds on a 75%+ turnout, if you think that's value.

    Some voters and their voting intention is being significantly uprated.

    Which ones?
  • eekeek Posts: 28,585

    Nigelb said:

    Hunt on R4 just now was promising an annual 2% productivity improvement in public services if re-elected.

    LOL.

    Sort of makes you ask why he's not doing it now.
    Because it's not actually that easy - a lot of the easy wins have been done so what you are now left with is expensive automation projects and there isn't the money to do that - because it would require identifying where they are and getting consultancies in to do it.

    And Government procurement is crap at that and then brings in crap firms who rarely know what new technology can do..
  • NigelbNigelb Posts: 72,175
    Eabhal said:

    FPT:

    On the idea that Labour voting intention is skin deep, check this out:

    https://x.com/LukeTryl/status/1796075704292905149

    Based on current vote intention, Tory and Labour voters have exactly the same sentiments towards a Tory or Labour victory, respectively. +31/-30.

    What's interesting is that levels of unhappiness for a Trump victory are not miles apart (-16/-23). But Reform voters (+7) would actually welcome it.

    The remaining Conservative voters are still "normal", in that they exist in a world where Trump winning is a bad thing. On that measure, even current Conservative voters are over 3 times closer along the political spectrum to Labour than they are to Reform.

    You don't have to be nuts to vote Conservative, but you probably do to vote Reform ?
  • AlanbrookeAlanbrooke Posts: 25,514
    Nigelb said:

    Nigelb said:

    Hunt on R4 just now was promising an annual 2% productivity improvement in public services if re-elected.

    LOL.

    Sort of makes you ask why he's not doing it now.
    Sheer carelessness, I suppose.

    It would be too cynical, of course, to suggest that he's setting an impossible target for Reeves.
    Nah, Reeves fk ups will be entirely of her own making.

    She will simply pass lots more pointless laws and gimmicks, raise taxes to pay for them and do nothing to help the real economy.
  • Scott_xPScott_xP Posts: 36,099
    @KevinASchofield

    Nick Robinson nailing Jeremy Hunt on VAT.

    "Which party put VAT up to 15%? Which party put it up 17.5%? And which party increased it to 20%?

    "Every increase to VAT there's been in your political lifetime - Thatcher, Major and Cameron - were increased by Conservatives govts."
  • AlanbrookeAlanbrooke Posts: 25,514
    eek said:

    Nigelb said:

    Hunt on R4 just now was promising an annual 2% productivity improvement in public services if re-elected.

    LOL.

    Sort of makes you ask why he's not doing it now.
    Because it's not actually that easy - a lot of the easy wins have been done so what you are now left with is expensive automation projects and there isn't the money to do that - because it would require identifying where they are and getting consultancies in to do it.

    And Government procurement is crap at that and then brings in crap firms who rarely know what new technology can do..
    Oh dont be ridiculous. Arent all the politicians telling us theyre taking the difficult decisions ? As if.

    Im afraid its send some sacred cows to the abbatoir and they are all afraid to do it.
  • TheuniondivvieTheuniondivvie Posts: 42,146
    edited May 30
  • eekeek Posts: 28,585
    edited May 30

    According to Stodge, who I trust, pollsters are predicting 72-78% turnout, which is utterly massive. You can get 14/1 odds on a 75%+ turnout, if you think that's value.

    Some voters and their voting intention is being significantly uprated.

    Which ones?

    I don't get a 70%+ turnout - even the Brexit referendum only got 72%.

    Even 2019 was only 68%

    if this election is going to get a 70%+ turnout the Tories are going to be in for a total kicking...
  • StuartinromfordStuartinromford Posts: 17,449
    eek said:

    Nigelb said:

    Hunt on R4 just now was promising an annual 2% productivity improvement in public services if re-elected.

    LOL.

    Sort of makes you ask why he's not doing it now.
    Because it's not actually that easy - a lot of the easy wins have been done so what you are now left with is expensive automation projects and there isn't the money to do that - because it would require identifying where they are and getting consultancies in to do it.

    And Government procurement is crap at that and then brings in crap firms who rarely know what new technology can do..
    See also local government.

    If savings through efficiency were easy, it ought to be possible to point to some council somewhere that has been able to respond to austerity without cutting many activities or enshittifying what remains.

    Of course it's right to keep an eye open for where things can be made to work better more cheaply. But I'd like to see some evidence that the reform fairy can save us from the consequences of decades of not really paying as much tax as we should have for the things we expect the state to do.
  • TheScreamingEaglesTheScreamingEagles Posts: 119,959
    eek said:

    According to Stodge, who I trust, pollsters are predicting 72-78% turnout, which is utterly massive. You can get 14/1 odds on a 75%+ turnout, if you think that's value.

    Some voters and their voting intention is being significantly uprated.

    Which ones?

    I don't get a 70%+ turnout - even the Brexit referendum only got 72%.

    Even 2019 was only 68%

    if this election is going to get a 70%+ turnout the Tories are going to be in for a total kicking...
    The only time the pollsters have come close to getting turnout right was during the indyref.

    Pollsters generally overestimate turnout.
  • StuartinromfordStuartinromford Posts: 17,449

    eek said:

    Nigelb said:

    Hunt on R4 just now was promising an annual 2% productivity improvement in public services if re-elected.

    LOL.

    Sort of makes you ask why he's not doing it now.
    Because it's not actually that easy - a lot of the easy wins have been done so what you are now left with is expensive automation projects and there isn't the money to do that - because it would require identifying where they are and getting consultancies in to do it.

    And Government procurement is crap at that and then brings in crap firms who rarely know what new technology can do..
    Oh dont be ridiculous. Arent all the politicians telling us theyre taking the difficult decisions ? As if.

    Im afraid its send some sacred cows to the abbatoir and they are all afraid to do it.
    I'm sure we'd all like to know which ones.

    Remember, the pay/conditions/pension package for public sector workers already makes it difficult to recruit and retain staff.
  • BenpointerBenpointer Posts: 34,805
    eek said:

    According to Stodge, who I trust, pollsters are predicting 72-78% turnout, which is utterly massive. You can get 14/1 odds on a 75%+ turnout, if you think that's value.

    Some voters and their voting intention is being significantly uprated.

    Which ones?

    I don't get a 70%+ turnout - even the Brexit referendum only got 72%.

    Even 2019 was only 68%

    if this election is going to get a 70%+ turnout the Tories are going to be in for a total kicking...
    Which is what the pollsters show... However, and I suppose this is Casino's point, if turnout is exaggerated (almost certainly) a lower turnout will hit Labour disproportionately and the result will be much narrower than the polls suggest.

    Against which: 1997.
  • eekeek Posts: 28,585

    eek said:

    Nigelb said:

    Hunt on R4 just now was promising an annual 2% productivity improvement in public services if re-elected.

    LOL.

    Sort of makes you ask why he's not doing it now.
    Because it's not actually that easy - a lot of the easy wins have been done so what you are now left with is expensive automation projects and there isn't the money to do that - because it would require identifying where they are and getting consultancies in to do it.

    And Government procurement is crap at that and then brings in crap firms who rarely know what new technology can do..
    Oh dont be ridiculous. Arent all the politicians telling us theyre taking the difficult decisions ? As if.

    Im afraid its send some sacred cows to the abbatoir and they are all afraid to do it.
    We are talking about efficiency improvements - what's that got to do with difficult decisions?

    Efficiency improvements means investment in training and in technology - something Governments are not that great at because they can't justify the money involved.
  • EabhalEabhal Posts: 8,951
    Nigelb said:

    Eabhal said:

    FPT:

    On the idea that Labour voting intention is skin deep, check this out:

    https://x.com/LukeTryl/status/1796075704292905149

    Based on current vote intention, Tory and Labour voters have exactly the same sentiments towards a Tory or Labour victory, respectively. +31/-30.

    What's interesting is that levels of unhappiness for a Trump victory are not miles apart (-16/-23). But Reform voters (+7) would actually welcome it.

    The remaining Conservative voters are still "normal", in that they exist in a world where Trump winning is a bad thing. On that measure, even current Conservative voters are over 3 times closer along the political spectrum to Labour than they are to Reform.

    You don't have to be nuts to vote Conservative, but you probably do to vote Reform ?
    Yes. And a campaign targeting Reform voters has to be nuts too.
  • megasaurmegasaur Posts: 586
    eek said:

    According to Stodge, who I trust, pollsters are predicting 72-78% turnout, which is utterly massive. You can get 14/1 odds on a 75%+ turnout, if you think that's value.

    Some voters and their voting intention is being significantly uprated.

    Which ones?

    I don't get a 70%+ turnout - even the Brexit referendum only got 72%.

    Even 2019 was only 68%

    if this election is going to get a 70%+ turnout the Tories are going to be in for a total kicking...
    Sub 65% is odds on favourite at about 1/3. Stunning tip if correct but I don't see it. I think disgruntled Tories staying at home will be the main factor
  • eekeek Posts: 28,585

    eek said:

    According to Stodge, who I trust, pollsters are predicting 72-78% turnout, which is utterly massive. You can get 14/1 odds on a 75%+ turnout, if you think that's value.

    Some voters and their voting intention is being significantly uprated.

    Which ones?

    I don't get a 70%+ turnout - even the Brexit referendum only got 72%.

    Even 2019 was only 68%

    if this election is going to get a 70%+ turnout the Tories are going to be in for a total kicking...
    Which is what the pollsters show... However, and I suppose this is Casino's point, if turnout is exaggerated (almost certainly) a lower turnout will hit Labour disproportionately and the result will be much narrower than the polls suggest.

    Against which: 1997.
    The question is which people are more likely to vote, those who wish to keep the current people in place or those who wish to replace Rishi with someone else.

    Everything tells me that the driver to vote this election won't be to keep Rishi in power it will be to remove him and the Tory party as far as possible... So the incentive to vote is going to be Labour / Lib Dem voters not Tories....
  • Sean_FSean_F Posts: 37,534
    FF43 said:

    Eabhal said:

    The tories in this thread are flying on wishful thinking. Wow. That is not what I expected from a betting site 🤯🤯🤯🤯 you guys are moving imaginary armies around on a map.

    You mean we intend to give you a fight, rather than just give up and surrender now?

    Get used to it. We're not French.
    That kind of attitude sums it all up really. The Dunkirk evacuation only happened because the French managed to hold off 7 German divisions at Lille. And Verdun?

    I suppose the alternative history has battalions of Boomers bounding through the bocage.
    Chortle. What I find hilarious is how jittery Labour posters get when their aura of invincibility is challenged for even a second.

    Why?

    Because they know it's built on sand. They know that their support may be a mile wide but it's an inch deep. They know the strategy is to allow voters to project onto SKS whatever they like. They know they don't really know what Starmer plans to do when he gets in office. And they know that their best hope to keep their coalition together is to keep the focus entirely on the Tories and keep them entirely and totally demoralised so they win by default.

    We know your game plan, and increasingly voters are waking up to it too.
    Elections are competitive zero sum games. You only need to be an inch deeper than the other guy. Mile wide and an inch deep is the best possible winning strategy.

    It does mean however that if Labour get a landslide this time they could lose it all in the subsequent election.
    Really, since 2008, everything that we took for granted has been swept away.
  • BenpointerBenpointer Posts: 34,805
    eek said:

    eek said:

    According to Stodge, who I trust, pollsters are predicting 72-78% turnout, which is utterly massive. You can get 14/1 odds on a 75%+ turnout, if you think that's value.

    Some voters and their voting intention is being significantly uprated.

    Which ones?

    I don't get a 70%+ turnout - even the Brexit referendum only got 72%.

    Even 2019 was only 68%

    if this election is going to get a 70%+ turnout the Tories are going to be in for a total kicking...
    Which is what the pollsters show... However, and I suppose this is Casino's point, if turnout is exaggerated (almost certainly) a lower turnout will hit Labour disproportionately and the result will be much narrower than the polls suggest.

    Against which: 1997.
    The question is which people are more likely to vote, those who wish to keep the current people in place or those who wish to replace Rishi with someone else.

    Everything tells me that the driver to vote this election won't be to keep Rishi in power it will be to remove him and the Tory party as far as possible... So the incentive to vote is going to be Labour / Lib Dem voters not Tories....
    That's my view too. I hope we are right.
  • Sean_FSean_F Posts: 37,534

    We're still in the phony war stage of the general election. People are not paying close attention. That will change when candidates are finalised and manifestos are published. Then the real battle begins.

    I do not think for one minute that Labour will win by anything like 20 points. I am a very firm believer in the maxim that the worst poll for Labour is the most accurate because that's generally how it has turned out in the past. The final JLP and Opinium polls are very likely to be the most accurate. However, I also think that tactical voting means a huge poll lead may not be as necessary as it may otherwise have been. We will have to see.

    So far, there's nothing in either campaign that makes me think the Tories can win. It's very noticeable what they are not talking about - the NHS, the cost of living, public services, transport, housing etc. VAT on schools, national service, small bungs to pensioners etc is core vote stuff.

    Basically, I remain where I have been all along - the most important result is that this destructive, incompetent government loses power. Anything else is a bonus.

    I agree. Even if Labour do, in the end, finish up with a lead in single digits, I'd expect them to get a working majority with it - especially now that Scotland is swinging their way.
  • TheScreamingEaglesTheScreamingEagles Posts: 119,959
    edited May 30
    Richard Burgon doesn't have any reselection issues does he?

    I would be truly gutted if he wasn't a Labour candidate.
  • NigelbNigelb Posts: 72,175

    According to Stodge, who I trust, pollsters are predicting 72-78% turnout, which is utterly massive. You can get 14/1 odds on a 75%+ turnout, if you think that's value.

    Some voters and their voting intention is being significantly uprated.

    Which ones?

    75% ? Really ?

    Still, it was 77% or so in 1992 - but well below that in 1997.
  • Sean_FSean_F Posts: 37,534
    eek said:

    eek said:

    According to Stodge, who I trust, pollsters are predicting 72-78% turnout, which is utterly massive. You can get 14/1 odds on a 75%+ turnout, if you think that's value.

    Some voters and their voting intention is being significantly uprated.

    Which ones?

    I don't get a 70%+ turnout - even the Brexit referendum only got 72%.

    Even 2019 was only 68%

    if this election is going to get a 70%+ turnout the Tories are going to be in for a total kicking...
    Which is what the pollsters show... However, and I suppose this is Casino's point, if turnout is exaggerated (almost certainly) a lower turnout will hit Labour disproportionately and the result will be much narrower than the polls suggest.

    Against which: 1997.
    The question is which people are more likely to vote, those who wish to keep the current people in place or those who wish to replace Rishi with someone else.

    Everything tells me that the driver to vote this election won't be to keep Rishi in power it will be to remove him and the Tory party as far as possible... So the incentive to vote is going to be Labour / Lib Dem voters not Tories....
    Hardly anyone will vote for this government with enthusiasm. But, there will be those voting for them, because they don't like Labour, and worry about their getting a mega majority.
  • GhedebravGhedebrav Posts: 3,860

    Nigelb said:

    Hunt on R4 just now was promising an annual 2% productivity improvement in public services if re-elected.

    LOL.

    Sort of makes you ask why he's not doing it now.
    The 'last 14 years' question will be tricky for them to navigate throughout this campaign; not helped I think by the fact that Sunak has been trying to campaign from opposition throughout his tenure. The public (naturally) will not buy this, and it doesn't take much thought progression to consider therefore why they aren't campaigning on their record.
  • eekeek Posts: 28,585
    megasaur said:

    eek said:

    According to Stodge, who I trust, pollsters are predicting 72-78% turnout, which is utterly massive. You can get 14/1 odds on a 75%+ turnout, if you think that's value.

    Some voters and their voting intention is being significantly uprated.

    Which ones?

    I don't get a 70%+ turnout - even the Brexit referendum only got 72%.

    Even 2019 was only 68%

    if this election is going to get a 70%+ turnout the Tories are going to be in for a total kicking...
    Sub 65% is odds on favourite at about 1/3. Stunning tip if correct but I don't see it. I think disgruntled Tories staying at home will be the main factor
    I think the important point is @Benpointer 's below - pollsters are showing 72-78% voting and that won't be the case when the election comes it is likely that only 65% or so will vote.

    So then the question becomes which part of the 78% in the opinion poll who claim that they are voting won't turn out and actually vote and there both Labour / Tories currently have a problem, Labour because it looks like your vote won't matter (they are going to win by miles) and Tories again because they are going to lose by miles.
  • RogerRoger Posts: 19,970
    eek said:


    Worth posting the last Opinium poll

    Labour leads by 14 points

    Labour: 41%
    Conservatives: 27%
    Reform UK: 10%
    Lib Dems: 10%
    Green: 7%
    SNP: 2%
    Others: 1%
    1,464 respondents

    Now while the Tory figure here is high it's the Labour figure that is low.

    But it still gives Labour a 200 seat majority and puts the Tories on a far worse result than 97 albeit with 160 seats they could rebuild from there.

    Didn't we learn yesterday that Opinium ( and JL) just take the figures and subtracted three or four from labour?
  • eekeek Posts: 28,585

    Richard Burgon doesn't have any reselection issues does he?

    I would be truly gutted if he wasn't a Labour candidate.

    I'm sure if you reported an historic offence of suitable hideousness the NEC would willingly accept it and start the investigation process off (suspend his candidacy and then do nothing else)
  • GhedebravGhedebrav Posts: 3,860

    According to Stodge, who I trust, pollsters are predicting 72-78% turnout, which is utterly massive. You can get 14/1 odds on a 75%+ turnout, if you think that's value.

    Some voters and their voting intention is being significantly uprated.

    Which ones?

    My gut feel is the 60-65% range. The noise around the Euros will start to drown out Snappy Lex. At least there is no match on the 4th though.
  • TheScreamingEaglesTheScreamingEagles Posts: 119,959
    eek said:

    Richard Burgon doesn't have any reselection issues does he?

    I would be truly gutted if he wasn't a Labour candidate.

    I'm sure if you reported an historic offence of suitable hideousness the NEC would willingly accept it and start the investigation process off (suspend his candidacy and then do nothing else)
    He's a sound fellow, the bestest of the best, a Cambridge educated lawyer no less.
  • eekeek Posts: 28,585
    edited May 30
    Roger said:

    eek said:


    Worth posting the last Opinium poll

    Labour leads by 14 points

    Labour: 41%
    Conservatives: 27%
    Reform UK: 10%
    Lib Dems: 10%
    Green: 7%
    SNP: 2%
    Others: 1%
    1,464 respondents

    Now while the Tory figure here is high it's the Labour figure that is low.

    But it still gives Labour a 200 seat majority and puts the Tories on a far worse result than 97 albeit with 160 seats they could rebuild from there.

    Didn't we learn yesterday that Opinium ( and JL) just take the figures and subtracted three or four from labour?
    JL use questions to determine the weight of each vote, but yep they massively increase Tory voting share while slightly reducing Labour's vote.

    Opinium seem to be different which I assume is why their respondent figures end up being 1500 rather than 2000...
  • LeonLeon Posts: 56,564
    You could do worse than live in Chisinau. You could also do better but still. Clean green safe and airy with excellent wine and lots of ugly buildings but good coffee and Ukrainian ice cream. Also Pushkin was exiled here - who knew?! Must have been relieved it wasn’t Siberia
  • EabhalEabhal Posts: 8,951
    Eabhal said:

    FPT:

    On the idea that Labour voting intention is skin deep, check this out:

    https://x.com/LukeTryl/status/1796075704292905149

    Based on current vote intention, Tory and Labour voters have exactly the same sentiments towards a Tory or Labour victory, respectively. +31/-30.

    What's interesting is that levels of unhappiness for a Trump victory are not miles apart (-16/-23). But Reform voters (+7) would actually welcome it.

    The remaining Conservative voters are still "normal", in that they exist in a world where Trump winning is a bad thing. On that measure, even current Conservative voters are over 3 times closer along the political spectrum to Labour than they are to Reform.

    This is what that looks like on a rubbish graph:




    (that's my quota)
  • RogerRoger Posts: 19,970
    "The dumbest thing since electing Boris Johnson"....whoh! Well yes it's pretty dumb, Jon Stewart is jewish of course but what would he know about anti semitism when compared to Keir Starmer?
  • CarnyxCarnyx Posts: 43,337
    edited May 30
    DougSeal said:

    Short anecdote about this message board. I showed it to my wife last night who became curious in the new GE context. She spent a few minutes reading it.

    Two takeaways

    (1) “WTF did you call yourself ‘DougSeal’?”

    and

    (2) “They all really hate the Labour Party don’t they?”.

    There you have it. Mrs Seal has spoken. I have a stupid username and the site breaks rightwards in general.

    It's all to do with the remarkable mating systems of pinnipeds. Even more remarkable is that there is only one Mrs Seal, though.

    Edit: No personal implications, I hasten to add, apologies. Just the pinniped side.
  • eekeek Posts: 28,585

    eek said:

    Richard Burgon doesn't have any reselection issues does he?

    I would be truly gutted if he wasn't a Labour candidate.

    I'm sure if you reported an historic offence of suitable hideousness the NEC would willingly accept it and start the investigation process off (suspend his candidacy and then do nothing else)
    He's a sound fellow, the bestest of the best, a Cambridge educated lawyer no less.
    In which case a spying for Russia allegation feels perfect....
  • CarnyxCarnyx Posts: 43,337

    eek said:

    Nigelb said:

    Hunt on R4 just now was promising an annual 2% productivity improvement in public services if re-elected.

    LOL.

    Sort of makes you ask why he's not doing it now.
    Because it's not actually that easy - a lot of the easy wins have been done so what you are now left with is expensive automation projects and there isn't the money to do that - because it would require identifying where they are and getting consultancies in to do it.

    And Government procurement is crap at that and then brings in crap firms who rarely know what new technology can do..
    See also local government.

    If savings through efficiency were easy, it ought to be possible to point to some council somewhere that has been able to respond to austerity without cutting many activities or enshittifying what remains.

    Of course it's right to keep an eye open for where things can be made to work better more cheaply. But I'd like to see some evidence that the reform fairy can save us from the consequences of decades of not really paying as much tax as we should have for the things we expect the state to do.
    Indeed. Especially Tory councils, in terms of being able to follow the party slogan on trimming fat etc. But Tory councils seem to be going bankrupt. So basically there we are. A meaningless slogan repeated by idiots who would shame a parrot (v. intelligent birds, really).
  • MexicanpeteMexicanpete Posts: 28,890
    ...
    eek said:

    Richard Burgon doesn't have any reselection issues does he?

    I would be truly gutted if he wasn't a Labour candidate.

    I'm sure if you reported an historic offence of suitable hideousness the NEC would willingly accept it and start the investigation process off (suspend his candidacy and then do nothing else)
    It's worth a try!
  • NigelbNigelb Posts: 72,175
    .
    DougSeal said:

    Short anecdote about this message board. I showed it to my wife last night who became curious in the new GE context. She spent a few minutes reading it.

    Two takeaways

    (1) “WTF did you call yourself ‘DougSeal’?”

    Yes, why was that ?
  • DoubleCarpetDoubleCarpet Posts: 891
    SA results if not already posted:

    https://results.elections.org.za/dashboards/npe/

    Thanks,

    DC
  • megasaurmegasaur Posts: 586
    eek said:

    megasaur said:

    eek said:

    According to Stodge, who I trust, pollsters are predicting 72-78% turnout, which is utterly massive. You can get 14/1 odds on a 75%+ turnout, if you think that's value.

    Some voters and their voting intention is being significantly uprated.

    Which ones?

    I don't get a 70%+ turnout - even the Brexit referendum only got 72%.

    Even 2019 was only 68%

    if this election is going to get a 70%+ turnout the Tories are going to be in for a total kicking...
    Sub 65% is odds on favourite at about 1/3. Stunning tip if correct but I don't see it. I think disgruntled Tories staying at home will be the main factor
    I think the important point is @Benpointer 's below - pollsters are showing 72-78% voting and that won't be the case when the election comes it is likely that only 65% or so will vote.

    So then the question becomes which part of the 78% in the opinion poll who claim that they are voting won't turn out and actually vote and there both Labour / Tories currently have a problem, Labour because it looks like your vote won't matter (they are going to win by miles) and Tories again because they are going to lose by miles.
    Yes sorry being dim

    It's a bit of a fail for the polling cos that they have not detected and compensated for the error
  • FF43FF43 Posts: 17,239
    edited May 30
    Sean_F said:

    eek said:

    eek said:

    According to Stodge, who I trust, pollsters are predicting 72-78% turnout, which is utterly massive. You can get 14/1 odds on a 75%+ turnout, if you think that's value.

    Some voters and their voting intention is being significantly uprated.

    Which ones?

    I don't get a 70%+ turnout - even the Brexit referendum only got 72%.

    Even 2019 was only 68%

    if this election is going to get a 70%+ turnout the Tories are going to be in for a total kicking...
    Which is what the pollsters show... However, and I suppose this is Casino's point, if turnout is exaggerated (almost certainly) a lower turnout will hit Labour disproportionately and the result will be much narrower than the polls suggest.

    Against which: 1997.
    The question is which people are more likely to vote, those who wish to keep the current people in place or those who wish to replace Rishi with someone else.

    Everything tells me that the driver to vote this election won't be to keep Rishi in power it will be to remove him and the Tory party as far as possible... So the incentive to vote is going to be Labour / Lib Dem voters not Tories....
    Hardly anyone will vote for this government with enthusiasm. But, there will be those voting for them, because they don't like Labour, and worry about their getting a mega majority.
    I believe the best remaining strategy for the Conservatives is to relentlessly attack Starmer on trust, to keep hold of waverers and encourage people who might sit the election out.

    It's a damage limitation strategy rather than a winning strategy. They don't need to answer the question whether people trust Sunak more if no-one thinks Sunak will still be around come July. And stay away from policy discussions. It just reminds people how bad the Conservatives have been.
  • DougSealDougSeal Posts: 12,541
    Leon said:

    You could do worse than live in Chisinau. You could also do better but still. Clean green safe and airy with excellent wine and lots of ugly buildings but good coffee and Ukrainian ice cream. Also Pushkin was exiled here - who knew?! Must have been relieved it wasn’t Siberia

    Kinda, but not quite. He was kicked out of Moscow in 1820 and resided in a few places, including Chisinău, but he wasn’t there long. He was exiled to his mother’s house, Mikhaylovskoye, in 1825 which is the period (more akin to house arrest) that’s normally referred to as his exile.

    Chisinău had some severely bad luck in the war. What the fighting didn’t destroy was done for by a ruinous earthquake in 1940, as my hosts did not hesitate to remind me when talking about architecture.
  • bigglesbiggles Posts: 6,198
    edited May 30
    Nigelb said:

    Hunt on R4 just now was promising an annual 2% productivity improvement in public services if re-elected.

    LOL.

    If he keeps trotting out that idiotic line, someone has to ask him to define public sector productivity. It’s hard enough in the private sector when you’re looking at services, it’s next to impossible to get a sensible value for the public sector, with the possible exception of the NHS if, and only if, you’re looking at surgery with an obvious and immediate outcome; or something like the passport office.
  • another_richardanother_richard Posts: 26,789
    Leon said:

    You could do worse than live in Chisinau. You could also do better but still. Clean green safe and airy with excellent wine and lots of ugly buildings but good coffee and Ukrainian ice cream. Also Pushkin was exiled here - who knew?! Must have been relieved it wasn’t Siberia

    You can probably get excellent wine at every supermarket in Europe.

    Or at least good enough for my taste.

    The relevant information is how much does the wine cost relative to earnings.

    In the UK I can buy a bottle of wine I like for about ten minutes work.
  • NigelbNigelb Posts: 72,175
    Nigelb said:

    According to Stodge, who I trust, pollsters are predicting 72-78% turnout, which is utterly massive. You can get 14/1 odds on a 75%+ turnout, if you think that's value.

    Some voters and their voting intention is being significantly uprated.

    Which ones?

    75% ? Really ?

    Still, it was 77% or so in 1992 - but well below that in 1997.
    You can get over 100/1 on Betfair for 75% plus.
  • DougSealDougSeal Posts: 12,541
    Carnyx said:

    DougSeal said:

    Short anecdote about this message board. I showed it to my wife last night who became curious in the new GE context. She spent a few minutes reading it.

    Two takeaways

    (1) “WTF did you call yourself ‘DougSeal’?”

    and

    (2) “They all really hate the Labour Party don’t they?”.

    There you have it. Mrs Seal has spoken. I have a stupid username and the site breaks rightwards in general.

    It's all to do with the remarkable mating systems of pinnipeds. Even more remarkable is that there is only one Mrs Seal, though.

    Edit: No personal implications, I hasten to add, apologies. Just the pinniped side.
    Who said there was only one?
  • RogerRoger Posts: 19,970
    edited May 30

    Richard Burgon doesn't have any reselection issues does he?

    I would be truly gutted if he wasn't a Labour candidate.

    Going to be an interesting parliament. After the cull there will be no lefties on the Labour side and only hard right brexiteers for the Tories. Lets hope the Scots find some free thinkers
  • another_richardanother_richard Posts: 26,789

    Nigelb said:

    Hunt on R4 just now was promising an annual 2% productivity improvement in public services if re-elected.

    LOL.

    Sort of makes you ask why he's not doing it now.
    To be fair AI does offer potential for some productivity improvements.

    Though likely with losses among some jobs.
  • bigglesbiggles Posts: 6,198
    Carnyx said:

    eek said:

    Nigelb said:

    Hunt on R4 just now was promising an annual 2% productivity improvement in public services if re-elected.

    LOL.

    Sort of makes you ask why he's not doing it now.
    Because it's not actually that easy - a lot of the easy wins have been done so what you are now left with is expensive automation projects and there isn't the money to do that - because it would require identifying where they are and getting consultancies in to do it.

    And Government procurement is crap at that and then brings in crap firms who rarely know what new technology can do..
    See also local government.

    If savings through efficiency were easy, it ought to be possible to point to some council somewhere that has been able to respond to austerity without cutting many activities or enshittifying what remains.

    Of course it's right to keep an eye open for where things can be made to work better more cheaply. But I'd like to see some evidence that the reform fairy can save us from the consequences of decades of not really paying as much tax as we should have for the things we expect the state to do.
    Indeed. Especially Tory councils, in terms of being able to follow the party slogan on trimming fat etc. But Tory councils seem to be going bankrupt. So basically there we are. A meaningless slogan repeated by idiots who would shame a parrot (v. intelligent birds, really).
    Oh you can easily point to some councils that have been ok. They will have been looked after by their mate Osborne giving them a greater share of business rates and/or various ring fenced bungs. They will also have richer residents, a higher concentration of posh houses, and fewer people in need. What they won’t be, is more efficient. But the ignorant local councillors who run them will think they are, and will look down on those who have to make hard choices elsewhere.
  • HYUFDHYUFD Posts: 123,878
    Eabhal said:

    FPT:

    On the idea that Labour voting intention is skin deep, check this out:

    https://x.com/LukeTryl/status/1796075704292905149

    Based on current vote intention, Tory and Labour voters have exactly the same sentiments towards a Tory or Labour victory, respectively. +31/-30.

    What's interesting is that levels of unhappiness for a Trump victory are not miles apart (-16/-23). But Reform voters (+7) would actually welcome it.

    The remaining Conservative voters are still "normal", in that they exist in a world where Trump winning is a bad thing. On that measure, even current Conservative voters are over 3 times closer along the political spectrum to Labour than they are to Reform.

    Yes ideologically Sunak Tories and Starmer Labour are both establishment parties like the Biden Democrats. Reform however are populists much like the Trumpite GOP
  • ToryJimToryJim Posts: 4,189
    Looks like Fazia’s purging is official.

    https://x.com/rachaelburford/status/1795932670024614028?s=61
  • megasaurmegasaur Posts: 586
    eek said:

    eek said:

    Nigelb said:

    Hunt on R4 just now was promising an annual 2% productivity improvement in public services if re-elected.

    LOL.

    Sort of makes you ask why he's not doing it now.
    Because it's not actually that easy - a lot of the easy wins have been done so what you are now left with is expensive automation projects and there isn't the money to do that - because it would require identifying where they are and getting consultancies in to do it.

    And Government procurement is crap at that and then brings in crap firms who rarely know what new technology can do..
    See also local government.

    If savings through efficiency were easy, it ought to be possible to point to some council somewhere that has been able to respond to austerity without cutting many activities or enshittifying what remains.

    Of course it's right to keep an eye open for where things can be made to work better more cheaply. But I'd like to see some evidence that the reform fairy can save us from the consequences of decades of not really paying as much tax as we should have for the things we expect the state to do.
    The thing people forget is that a lot of things Government does is not exactly ripe for efficiency improvements. A home help can't fit in another visit a day because they do need to spend the hour getting the patient up, washed, dressed and fed.

    You can write computer software to improve social care work, but that's incredibly expensive both up front and (nowadays) monthly on top but the efficiency is on the edges, the meetings themselves are required and can't be shortened (well they could be but that way leads to deaths).

    Basically a lot of the public sector can only be improved at the edges and a lot of other ones will seem counter intuitive - for instance it makes sense that a consultant does their own paper work in a business consultancy, it makes zero sense when a consultant does it at a hospital, they could see another couple of patients in that time.
    I can see analyzing complex systems and making improvements as something AI might in due course be useful for. In fact I don't see why Sunak doesn't lean in to the tech bro thing and present himself as the White Heat of Technology choice.
  • RogerRoger Posts: 19,970

    Leon said:

    You could do worse than live in Chisinau. You could also do better but still. Clean green safe and airy with excellent wine and lots of ugly buildings but good coffee and Ukrainian ice cream. Also Pushkin was exiled here - who knew?! Must have been relieved it wasn’t Siberia

    You can probably get excellent wine at every supermarket in Europe.

    Or at least good enough for my taste.

    The relevant information is how much does the wine cost relative to earnings.

    In the UK I can buy a bottle of wine I like for about ten minutes work.
    Well you're not a car mechanic
  • MexicanpeteMexicanpete Posts: 28,890
    HYUFD said:

    Eabhal said:

    FPT:

    On the idea that Labour voting intention is skin deep, check this out:

    https://x.com/LukeTryl/status/1796075704292905149

    Based on current vote intention, Tory and Labour voters have exactly the same sentiments towards a Tory or Labour victory, respectively. +31/-30.

    What's interesting is that levels of unhappiness for a Trump victory are not miles apart (-16/-23). But Reform voters (+7) would actually welcome it.

    The remaining Conservative voters are still "normal", in that they exist in a world where Trump winning is a bad thing. On that measure, even current Conservative voters are over 3 times closer along the political spectrum to Labour than they are to Reform.

    Yes ideologically Sunak Tories and Starmer Labour are both establishment parties like the Biden Democrats. Reform however are populists much like the Trumpite GOP
    Why then is Lord Nigel trying to have Reform subsumed by the Rishi Tories? Tice and Oakshott on the other hand, patriots to the core!
  • viewcodeviewcode Posts: 22,388

    SA results if not already posted:

    https://results.elections.org.za/dashboards/npe/

    Thanks,

    DC

    Nice to see you as always, @DoubleCarpet . Will we be seeing you more around July?
  • bigglesbiggles Posts: 6,198
    megasaur said:

    eek said:

    eek said:

    Nigelb said:

    Hunt on R4 just now was promising an annual 2% productivity improvement in public services if re-elected.

    LOL.

    Sort of makes you ask why he's not doing it now.
    Because it's not actually that easy - a lot of the easy wins have been done so what you are now left with is expensive automation projects and there isn't the money to do that - because it would require identifying where they are and getting consultancies in to do it.

    And Government procurement is crap at that and then brings in crap firms who rarely know what new technology can do..
    See also local government.

    If savings through efficiency were easy, it ought to be possible to point to some council somewhere that has been able to respond to austerity without cutting many activities or enshittifying what remains.

    Of course it's right to keep an eye open for where things can be made to work better more cheaply. But I'd like to see some evidence that the reform fairy can save us from the consequences of decades of not really paying as much tax as we should have for the things we expect the state to do.
    The thing people forget is that a lot of things Government does is not exactly ripe for efficiency improvements. A home help can't fit in another visit a day because they do need to spend the hour getting the patient up, washed, dressed and fed.

    You can write computer software to improve social care work, but that's incredibly expensive both up front and (nowadays) monthly on top but the efficiency is on the edges, the meetings themselves are required and can't be shortened (well they could be but that way leads to deaths).

    Basically a lot of the public sector can only be improved at the edges and a lot of other ones will seem counter intuitive - for instance it makes sense that a consultant does their own paper work in a business consultancy, it makes zero sense when a consultant does it at a hospital, they could see another couple of patients in that time.
    I can see analyzing complex systems and making improvements as something AI might in due course be useful for. In fact I don't see why Sunak doesn't lean in to the tech bro thing and present himself as the White Heat of Technology choice.
    The problem with AI in the public sector is that, by definition, it can’t be in-house. So using it creatively on anything public facing is a GDPR nightmare.
  • CarnyxCarnyx Posts: 43,337
    biggles said:

    megasaur said:

    eek said:

    eek said:

    Nigelb said:

    Hunt on R4 just now was promising an annual 2% productivity improvement in public services if re-elected.

    LOL.

    Sort of makes you ask why he's not doing it now.
    Because it's not actually that easy - a lot of the easy wins have been done so what you are now left with is expensive automation projects and there isn't the money to do that - because it would require identifying where they are and getting consultancies in to do it.

    And Government procurement is crap at that and then brings in crap firms who rarely know what new technology can do..
    See also local government.

    If savings through efficiency were easy, it ought to be possible to point to some council somewhere that has been able to respond to austerity without cutting many activities or enshittifying what remains.

    Of course it's right to keep an eye open for where things can be made to work better more cheaply. But I'd like to see some evidence that the reform fairy can save us from the consequences of decades of not really paying as much tax as we should have for the things we expect the state to do.
    The thing people forget is that a lot of things Government does is not exactly ripe for efficiency improvements. A home help can't fit in another visit a day because they do need to spend the hour getting the patient up, washed, dressed and fed.

    You can write computer software to improve social care work, but that's incredibly expensive both up front and (nowadays) monthly on top but the efficiency is on the edges, the meetings themselves are required and can't be shortened (well they could be but that way leads to deaths).

    Basically a lot of the public sector can only be improved at the edges and a lot of other ones will seem counter intuitive - for instance it makes sense that a consultant does their own paper work in a business consultancy, it makes zero sense when a consultant does it at a hospital, they could see another couple of patients in that time.
    I can see analyzing complex systems and making improvements as something AI might in due course be useful for. In fact I don't see why Sunak doesn't lean in to the tech bro thing and present himself as the White Heat of Technology choice.
    The problem with AI in the public sector is that, by definition, it can’t be in-house. So using it creatively on anything public facing is a GDPR nightmare.
    Eh? How does that work, your first statement?
  • eekeek Posts: 28,585
    https://x.com/LukeTryl/status/1796075704292905149

    How happy or sad would the average person be if Labour win the election? About as happy as if someone gave them tickets to Glastonbury according to our

    @moreincommon_
    poll for
    @TheNewsAgents
    but not quite as happy as if England win the Euros or finding a £5 note on the street.


  • another_richardanother_richard Posts: 26,789
    eek said:

    eek said:

    Nigelb said:

    Hunt on R4 just now was promising an annual 2% productivity improvement in public services if re-elected.

    LOL.

    Sort of makes you ask why he's not doing it now.
    Because it's not actually that easy - a lot of the easy wins have been done so what you are now left with is expensive automation projects and there isn't the money to do that - because it would require identifying where they are and getting consultancies in to do it.

    And Government procurement is crap at that and then brings in crap firms who rarely know what new technology can do..
    See also local government.

    If savings through efficiency were easy, it ought to be possible to point to some council somewhere that has been able to respond to austerity without cutting many activities or enshittifying what remains.

    Of course it's right to keep an eye open for where things can be made to work better more cheaply. But I'd like to see some evidence that the reform fairy can save us from the consequences of decades of not really paying as much tax as we should have for the things we expect the state to do.
    The thing people forget is that a lot of things Government does is not exactly ripe for efficiency improvements. A home help can't fit in another visit a day because they do need to spend the hour getting the patient up, washed, dressed and fed.

    You can write computer software to improve social care work, but that's incredibly expensive both up front and (nowadays) monthly on top but the efficiency is on the edges, the meetings themselves are required and can't be shortened (well they could be but that way leads to deaths).

    Basically a lot of the public sector can only be improved at the edges and a lot of other ones will seem counter intuitive - for instance it makes sense that a consultant does their own paper work in a business consultancy, it makes zero sense when a consultant does it at a hospital, they could see another couple of patients in that time.
    The more you reduce the number of workers who are capable of productivity increases the greater the productivity increases the remaining workers will need to achieve to pull the national productivity average up.

    At some point those workers still increasing their productivity wonder why they should do so if the gains from their extra productivity are going predominantly to the government or to the executive oligarchy instead of themselves.
  • eekeek Posts: 28,585
    biggles said:

    megasaur said:

    eek said:

    eek said:

    Nigelb said:

    Hunt on R4 just now was promising an annual 2% productivity improvement in public services if re-elected.

    LOL.

    Sort of makes you ask why he's not doing it now.
    Because it's not actually that easy - a lot of the easy wins have been done so what you are now left with is expensive automation projects and there isn't the money to do that - because it would require identifying where they are and getting consultancies in to do it.

    And Government procurement is crap at that and then brings in crap firms who rarely know what new technology can do..
    See also local government.

    If savings through efficiency were easy, it ought to be possible to point to some council somewhere that has been able to respond to austerity without cutting many activities or enshittifying what remains.

    Of course it's right to keep an eye open for where things can be made to work better more cheaply. But I'd like to see some evidence that the reform fairy can save us from the consequences of decades of not really paying as much tax as we should have for the things we expect the state to do.
    The thing people forget is that a lot of things Government does is not exactly ripe for efficiency improvements. A home help can't fit in another visit a day because they do need to spend the hour getting the patient up, washed, dressed and fed.

    You can write computer software to improve social care work, but that's incredibly expensive both up front and (nowadays) monthly on top but the efficiency is on the edges, the meetings themselves are required and can't be shortened (well they could be but that way leads to deaths).

    Basically a lot of the public sector can only be improved at the edges and a lot of other ones will seem counter intuitive - for instance it makes sense that a consultant does their own paper work in a business consultancy, it makes zero sense when a consultant does it at a hospital, they could see another couple of patients in that time.
    I can see analyzing complex systems and making improvements as something AI might in due course be useful for. In fact I don't see why Sunak doesn't lean in to the tech bro thing and present himself as the White Heat of Technology choice.
    The problem with AI in the public sector is that, by definition, it can’t be in-house. So using it creatively on anything public facing is a GDPR nightmare.
    I saw a number of privacy people complaining about Sainsbury's deal with Microsoft yesterday.

    And that's just Microsoft attaching their existing model to Sainsbury's data - it won't be sharing it elsewhere afterwards, it's a clone that would rapidly be Sainsbury's specific and not accessible to anyone else...
  • BarnesianBarnesian Posts: 8,679
    edited May 30
    There's a hint that the Tory share is increasing a bit. But so is the Labour share, as Reform goes into reverse.




  • DougSealDougSeal Posts: 12,541
    eek said:

    https://x.com/LukeTryl/status/1796075704292905149

    How happy or sad would the average person be if Labour win the election? About as happy as if someone gave them tickets to Glastonbury according to our

    @moreincommon_
    poll for
    @TheNewsAgents
    but not quite as happy as if England win the Euros or finding a £5 note on the street.


    I went to Glasto when I was 18, Tom Jones did what I think was the first legends slot, during Euro 92. It was stupidly hot and they ran out of water at one point. I really regret not going again but it seems a bit naff to go post 30.
  • Nigel_ForemainNigel_Foremain Posts: 14,350
    Sean_F said:

    We're still in the phony war stage of the general election. People are not paying close attention. That will change when candidates are finalised and manifestos are published. Then the real battle begins.

    I do not think for one minute that Labour will win by anything like 20 points. I am a very firm believer in the maxim that the worst poll for Labour is the most accurate because that's generally how it has turned out in the past. The final JLP and Opinium polls are very likely to be the most accurate. However, I also think that tactical voting means a huge poll lead may not be as necessary as it may otherwise have been. We will have to see.

    So far, there's nothing in either campaign that makes me think the Tories can win. It's very noticeable what they are not talking about - the NHS, the cost of living, public services, transport, housing etc. VAT on schools, national service, small bungs to pensioners etc is core vote stuff.

    Basically, I remain where I have been all along - the most important result is that this destructive, incompetent government loses power. Anything else is a bonus.

    I agree. Even if Labour do, in the end, finish up with a lead in single digits, I'd expect them to get a working majority with it - especially now that Scotland is swinging their way.
    A small Labour majority is probably the best for the country. If they fail again, even under these circumstances, that will be bad for democracy and cause them to swing back to their extreme left -and there will still be plenty of them - the "purge" is window dressing.
  • bigglesbiggles Posts: 6,198
    edited May 30
    Carnyx said:

    biggles said:

    megasaur said:

    eek said:

    eek said:

    Nigelb said:

    Hunt on R4 just now was promising an annual 2% productivity improvement in public services if re-elected.

    LOL.

    Sort of makes you ask why he's not doing it now.
    Because it's not actually that easy - a lot of the easy wins have been done so what you are now left with is expensive automation projects and there isn't the money to do that - because it would require identifying where they are and getting consultancies in to do it.

    And Government procurement is crap at that and then brings in crap firms who rarely know what new technology can do..
    See also local government.

    If savings through efficiency were easy, it ought to be possible to point to some council somewhere that has been able to respond to austerity without cutting many activities or enshittifying what remains.

    Of course it's right to keep an eye open for where things can be made to work better more cheaply. But I'd like to see some evidence that the reform fairy can save us from the consequences of decades of not really paying as much tax as we should have for the things we expect the state to do.
    The thing people forget is that a lot of things Government does is not exactly ripe for efficiency improvements. A home help can't fit in another visit a day because they do need to spend the hour getting the patient up, washed, dressed and fed.

    You can write computer software to improve social care work, but that's incredibly expensive both up front and (nowadays) monthly on top but the efficiency is on the edges, the meetings themselves are required and can't be shortened (well they could be but that way leads to deaths).

    Basically a lot of the public sector can only be improved at the edges and a lot of other ones will seem counter intuitive - for instance it makes sense that a consultant does their own paper work in a business consultancy, it makes zero sense when a consultant does it at a hospital, they could see another couple of patients in that time.
    I can see analyzing complex systems and making improvements as something AI might in due course be useful for. In fact I don't see why Sunak doesn't lean in to the tech bro thing and present himself as the White Heat of Technology choice.
    The problem with AI in the public sector is that, by definition, it can’t be in-house. So using it creatively on anything public facing is a GDPR nightmare.
    Eh? How does that work, your first statement?
    Take something like cancer detection, where some interesting work has been done. You can get somewhere within your hospital, or within the NHS, analysing scans or teasing out trends and seeing if you can detect cancers early. But to be really, really effective you probably want a larger data set, and that means sharing patient info outside the system.
  • geoffwgeoffw Posts: 8,771
    edited May 30
    Persuading the "floating voter" to vote for your party is not the game now, and probably never really has been. It is more about getting people who are inherently inclined towards your party to actually go to a polling booth or send in the letter. It is about motivating your base. And there is a distribution of intensities of voting propensity within that base, which is what the election campaigns are trying to affect. The Tories start with a presumption that a sizeable proportion of their natural voters will sit on their hands unless they are motivated by the campaign to vote, and this explains their frenetic attention-seeking in the early stages. By contrast Labour's strategy is to 'not scare the horses' with blandness, caution and removing dodgy candidates. In doing so they will exasperate their keenest supporters. It's United versus City all over again, with the wrong colours.
  • HYUFDHYUFD Posts: 123,878
    With 11% of the vote in from South Africa the ANC is on 43% and the opposition DA second on 26%.

    A narrowing of the gap since the last general election but the ANC still in front

    "South Africa election results: Counting under way after pivotal poll - BBC News" https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cjll8nr6962o
  • CookieCookie Posts: 14,072
    DougSeal said:

    Leon said:

    You could do worse than live in Chisinau. You could also do better but still. Clean green safe and airy with excellent wine and lots of ugly buildings but good coffee and Ukrainian ice cream. Also Pushkin was exiled here - who knew?! Must have been relieved it wasn’t Siberia

    Kinda, but not quite. He was kicked out of Moscow in 1820 and resided in a few places, including Chisinău, but he wasn’t there long. He was exiled to his mother’s house, Mikhaylovskoye, in 1825 which is the period (more akin to house arrest) that’s normally referred to as his exile.

    Chisinău had some severely bad luck in the war. What the fighting didn’t destroy was done for by a ruinous earthquake in 1940, as my hosts did not hesitate to remind me when talking about architecture.
    ISTR OUAT Chisinau was a kind of anti-Siberia - good communists from the USSR were sent there for a bit as a reward.
  • eekeek Posts: 28,585

    eek said:

    eek said:

    Nigelb said:

    Hunt on R4 just now was promising an annual 2% productivity improvement in public services if re-elected.

    LOL.

    Sort of makes you ask why he's not doing it now.
    Because it's not actually that easy - a lot of the easy wins have been done so what you are now left with is expensive automation projects and there isn't the money to do that - because it would require identifying where they are and getting consultancies in to do it.

    And Government procurement is crap at that and then brings in crap firms who rarely know what new technology can do..
    See also local government.

    If savings through efficiency were easy, it ought to be possible to point to some council somewhere that has been able to respond to austerity without cutting many activities or enshittifying what remains.

    Of course it's right to keep an eye open for where things can be made to work better more cheaply. But I'd like to see some evidence that the reform fairy can save us from the consequences of decades of not really paying as much tax as we should have for the things we expect the state to do.
    The thing people forget is that a lot of things Government does is not exactly ripe for efficiency improvements. A home help can't fit in another visit a day because they do need to spend the hour getting the patient up, washed, dressed and fed.

    You can write computer software to improve social care work, but that's incredibly expensive both up front and (nowadays) monthly on top but the efficiency is on the edges, the meetings themselves are required and can't be shortened (well they could be but that way leads to deaths).

    Basically a lot of the public sector can only be improved at the edges and a lot of other ones will seem counter intuitive - for instance it makes sense that a consultant does their own paper work in a business consultancy, it makes zero sense when a consultant does it at a hospital, they could see another couple of patients in that time.
    The more you reduce the number of workers who are capable of productivity increases the greater the productivity increases the remaining workers will need to achieve to pull the national productivity average up.

    At some point those workers still increasing their productivity wonder why they should do so if the gains from their extra productivity are going predominantly to the government or to the executive oligarchy instead of themselves.
    Hunt is asking for 2% in the public sector - the point is the public sector consists of a lot of things were efficiency is impossible - can you teach someone more efficiently (well I can give you a 6% improvement by adding 10% to class sizes but is that really a great plan?)
  • bigglesbiggles Posts: 6,198
    eek said:

    biggles said:

    megasaur said:

    eek said:

    eek said:

    Nigelb said:

    Hunt on R4 just now was promising an annual 2% productivity improvement in public services if re-elected.

    LOL.

    Sort of makes you ask why he's not doing it now.
    Because it's not actually that easy - a lot of the easy wins have been done so what you are now left with is expensive automation projects and there isn't the money to do that - because it would require identifying where they are and getting consultancies in to do it.

    And Government procurement is crap at that and then brings in crap firms who rarely know what new technology can do..
    See also local government.

    If savings through efficiency were easy, it ought to be possible to point to some council somewhere that has been able to respond to austerity without cutting many activities or enshittifying what remains.

    Of course it's right to keep an eye open for where things can be made to work better more cheaply. But I'd like to see some evidence that the reform fairy can save us from the consequences of decades of not really paying as much tax as we should have for the things we expect the state to do.
    The thing people forget is that a lot of things Government does is not exactly ripe for efficiency improvements. A home help can't fit in another visit a day because they do need to spend the hour getting the patient up, washed, dressed and fed.

    You can write computer software to improve social care work, but that's incredibly expensive both up front and (nowadays) monthly on top but the efficiency is on the edges, the meetings themselves are required and can't be shortened (well they could be but that way leads to deaths).

    Basically a lot of the public sector can only be improved at the edges and a lot of other ones will seem counter intuitive - for instance it makes sense that a consultant does their own paper work in a business consultancy, it makes zero sense when a consultant does it at a hospital, they could see another couple of patients in that time.
    I can see analyzing complex systems and making improvements as something AI might in due course be useful for. In fact I don't see why Sunak doesn't lean in to the tech bro thing and present himself as the White Heat of Technology choice.
    The problem with AI in the public sector is that, by definition, it can’t be in-house. So using it creatively on anything public facing is a GDPR nightmare.
    I saw a number of privacy people complaining about Sainsbury's deal with Microsoft yesterday.

    And that's just Microsoft attaching their existing model to Sainsbury's data - it won't be sharing it elsewhere afterwards, it's a clone that would rapidly be Sainsbury's specific and not accessible to anyone else...
    Yup. People like to think their data is locked in a filing cabinet and isn’t even used anonymously alongside any other customers. They also want you to innovate and understand how they compare to everyone else. People, as a block, can be quite silly.
  • DougSealDougSeal Posts: 12,541
    Carnyx said:

    biggles said:

    megasaur said:

    eek said:

    eek said:

    Nigelb said:

    Hunt on R4 just now was promising an annual 2% productivity improvement in public services if re-elected.

    LOL.

    Sort of makes you ask why he's not doing it now.
    Because it's not actually that easy - a lot of the easy wins have been done so what you are now left with is expensive automation projects and there isn't the money to do that - because it would require identifying where they are and getting consultancies in to do it.

    And Government procurement is crap at that and then brings in crap firms who rarely know what new technology can do..
    See also local government.

    If savings through efficiency were easy, it ought to be possible to point to some council somewhere that has been able to respond to austerity without cutting many activities or enshittifying what remains.

    Of course it's right to keep an eye open for where things can be made to work better more cheaply. But I'd like to see some evidence that the reform fairy can save us from the consequences of decades of not really paying as much tax as we should have for the things we expect the state to do.
    The thing people forget is that a lot of things Government does is not exactly ripe for efficiency improvements. A home help can't fit in another visit a day because they do need to spend the hour getting the patient up, washed, dressed and fed.

    You can write computer software to improve social care work, but that's incredibly expensive both up front and (nowadays) monthly on top but the efficiency is on the edges, the meetings themselves are required and can't be shortened (well they could be but that way leads to deaths).

    Basically a lot of the public sector can only be improved at the edges and a lot of other ones will seem counter intuitive - for instance it makes sense that a consultant does their own paper work in a business consultancy, it makes zero sense when a consultant does it at a hospital, they could see another couple of patients in that time.
    I can see analyzing complex systems and making improvements as something AI might in due course be useful for. In fact I don't see why Sunak doesn't lean in to the tech bro thing and present himself as the White Heat of Technology choice.
    The problem with AI in the public sector is that, by definition, it can’t be in-house. So using it creatively on anything public facing is a GDPR nightmare.
    Eh? How does that work, your first statement?
    I’m guessing that your average public body doesn’t have the budget to create its own AI models or, indeed, hardware.
  • Nigel_ForemainNigel_Foremain Posts: 14,350

    HYUFD said:

    Eabhal said:

    FPT:

    On the idea that Labour voting intention is skin deep, check this out:

    https://x.com/LukeTryl/status/1796075704292905149

    Based on current vote intention, Tory and Labour voters have exactly the same sentiments towards a Tory or Labour victory, respectively. +31/-30.

    What's interesting is that levels of unhappiness for a Trump victory are not miles apart (-16/-23). But Reform voters (+7) would actually welcome it.

    The remaining Conservative voters are still "normal", in that they exist in a world where Trump winning is a bad thing. On that measure, even current Conservative voters are over 3 times closer along the political spectrum to Labour than they are to Reform.

    Yes ideologically Sunak Tories and Starmer Labour are both establishment parties like the Biden Democrats. Reform however are populists much like the Trumpite GOP
    Why then is Lord Nigel trying to have Reform subsumed by the Rishi Tories? Tice and Oakshott on the other hand, patriots to the core!
    The first phase of Conservative recovery post GE is telling these crypto-fascists to go and f*** themselves. Tories need to understand that swinging to the right only works when the LoTO is a thick pseudo-communist. Whether Starmer is moderate or otherwise remains to be seen, but the electorate appears to have bought that he is, for the time being at least.
  • NigelbNigelb Posts: 72,175
    eek said:

    eek said:

    Nigelb said:

    Hunt on R4 just now was promising an annual 2% productivity improvement in public services if re-elected.

    LOL.

    Sort of makes you ask why he's not doing it now.
    Because it's not actually that easy - a lot of the easy wins have been done so what you are now left with is expensive automation projects and there isn't the money to do that - because it would require identifying where they are and getting consultancies in to do it.

    And Government procurement is crap at that and then brings in crap firms who rarely know what new technology can do..
    See also local government.

    If savings through efficiency were easy, it ought to be possible to point to some council somewhere that has been able to respond to austerity without cutting many activities or enshittifying what remains.

    Of course it's right to keep an eye open for where things can be made to work better more cheaply. But I'd like to see some evidence that the reform fairy can save us from the consequences of decades of not really paying as much tax as we should have for the things we expect the state to do.
    The thing people forget is that a lot of things Government does is not exactly ripe for efficiency improvements. A home help can't fit in another visit a day because they do need to spend the hour getting the patient up, washed, dressed and fed.

    You can write computer software to improve social care work, but that's incredibly expensive both up front and (nowadays) monthly on top but the efficiency is on the edges, the meetings themselves are required and can't be shortened (well they could be but that way leads to deaths).

    Basically a lot of the public sector can only be improved at the edges and a lot of other ones will seem counter intuitive - for instance it makes sense that a consultant does their own paper work in a business consultancy, it makes zero sense when a consultant does it at a hospital, they could see another couple of patients in that time.
    There are some grounds for optimism in health from technology improvements.

    The new obesity drugs, for example, are possibly going to be more widely prescribed, and have far greater benefits, than statins. The potential savings over the next decade or so on treatment of chronic ill health are massive.
    It's not a given (not enough long term data yet), but it's a possibility.

    Another example is scanners which don't require cryogenic magnets, so will be an order of magnitude cheaper than existing systems.

    It won't bail out the next Parliament's finances, but it might so so for the one after.
  • FlatlanderFlatlander Posts: 4,721
    biggles said:

    Carnyx said:

    biggles said:

    megasaur said:

    eek said:

    eek said:

    Nigelb said:

    Hunt on R4 just now was promising an annual 2% productivity improvement in public services if re-elected.

    LOL.

    Sort of makes you ask why he's not doing it now.
    Because it's not actually that easy - a lot of the easy wins have been done so what you are now left with is expensive automation projects and there isn't the money to do that - because it would require identifying where they are and getting consultancies in to do it.

    And Government procurement is crap at that and then brings in crap firms who rarely know what new technology can do..
    See also local government.

    If savings through efficiency were easy, it ought to be possible to point to some council somewhere that has been able to respond to austerity without cutting many activities or enshittifying what remains.

    Of course it's right to keep an eye open for where things can be made to work better more cheaply. But I'd like to see some evidence that the reform fairy can save us from the consequences of decades of not really paying as much tax as we should have for the things we expect the state to do.
    The thing people forget is that a lot of things Government does is not exactly ripe for efficiency improvements. A home help can't fit in another visit a day because they do need to spend the hour getting the patient up, washed, dressed and fed.

    You can write computer software to improve social care work, but that's incredibly expensive both up front and (nowadays) monthly on top but the efficiency is on the edges, the meetings themselves are required and can't be shortened (well they could be but that way leads to deaths).

    Basically a lot of the public sector can only be improved at the edges and a lot of other ones will seem counter intuitive - for instance it makes sense that a consultant does their own paper work in a business consultancy, it makes zero sense when a consultant does it at a hospital, they could see another couple of patients in that time.
    I can see analyzing complex systems and making improvements as something AI might in due course be useful for. In fact I don't see why Sunak doesn't lean in to the tech bro thing and present himself as the White Heat of Technology choice.
    The problem with AI in the public sector is that, by definition, it can’t be in-house. So using it creatively on anything public facing is a GDPR nightmare.
    Eh? How does that work, your first statement?
    Take something like cancer detection, where some interesting work has been done. You can get somewhere within your hospital, or within the NHS, analysing scans or teasing out trends and seeing if you can detect cancers early. But to be really, really effective you probably want a larger data set, and that means sharing patient info outside the system.
    I'd have thought that NHS patient info is likely to be the largest available data set.

    I don't see why it can't be done in-house.
  • MexicanpeteMexicanpete Posts: 28,890
    eek said:

    https://x.com/LukeTryl/status/1796075704292905149

    How happy or sad would the average person be if Labour win the election? About as happy as if someone gave them tickets to Glastonbury according to our

    @moreincommon_
    poll for
    @TheNewsAgents
    but not quite as happy as if England win the Euros or finding a £5 note on the street.


    This is clearly nonsense. Finding a fiver is 26 points shy of reality so surely we can add 26 to the Tories -11 giving a healthy +15.
  • Daveyboy1961Daveyboy1961 Posts: 3,944
    eek said:

    eek said:

    eek said:

    Nigelb said:

    Hunt on R4 just now was promising an annual 2% productivity improvement in public services if re-elected.

    LOL.

    Sort of makes you ask why he's not doing it now.
    Because it's not actually that easy - a lot of the easy wins have been done so what you are now left with is expensive automation projects and there isn't the money to do that - because it would require identifying where they are and getting consultancies in to do it.

    And Government procurement is crap at that and then brings in crap firms who rarely know what new technology can do..
    See also local government.

    If savings through efficiency were easy, it ought to be possible to point to some council somewhere that has been able to respond to austerity without cutting many activities or enshittifying what remains.

    Of course it's right to keep an eye open for where things can be made to work better more cheaply. But I'd like to see some evidence that the reform fairy can save us from the consequences of decades of not really paying as much tax as we should have for the things we expect the state to do.
    The thing people forget is that a lot of things Government does is not exactly ripe for efficiency improvements. A home help can't fit in another visit a day because they do need to spend the hour getting the patient up, washed, dressed and fed.

    You can write computer software to improve social care work, but that's incredibly expensive both up front and (nowadays) monthly on top but the efficiency is on the edges, the meetings themselves are required and can't be shortened (well they could be but that way leads to deaths).

    Basically a lot of the public sector can only be improved at the edges and a lot of other ones will seem counter intuitive - for instance it makes sense that a consultant does their own paper work in a business consultancy, it makes zero sense when a consultant does it at a hospital, they could see another couple of patients in that time.
    The more you reduce the number of workers who are capable of productivity increases the greater the productivity increases the remaining workers will need to achieve to pull the national productivity average up.

    At some point those workers still increasing their productivity wonder why they should do so if the gains from their extra productivity are going predominantly to the government or to the executive oligarchy instead of themselves.
    Hunt is asking for 2% in the public sector - the point is the public sector consists of a lot of things were efficiency is impossible - can you teach someone more efficiently (well I can give you a 6% improvement by adding 10% to class sizes but is that really a great plan?)
    You could improve productively by asking teachers to give up 1 period of PPA for cover purposes.
  • NigelbNigelb Posts: 72,175
    megasaur said:

    eek said:

    eek said:

    Nigelb said:

    Hunt on R4 just now was promising an annual 2% productivity improvement in public services if re-elected.

    LOL.

    Sort of makes you ask why he's not doing it now.
    Because it's not actually that easy - a lot of the easy wins have been done so what you are now left with is expensive automation projects and there isn't the money to do that - because it would require identifying where they are and getting consultancies in to do it.

    And Government procurement is crap at that and then brings in crap firms who rarely know what new technology can do..
    See also local government.

    If savings through efficiency were easy, it ought to be possible to point to some council somewhere that has been able to respond to austerity without cutting many activities or enshittifying what remains.

    Of course it's right to keep an eye open for where things can be made to work better more cheaply. But I'd like to see some evidence that the reform fairy can save us from the consequences of decades of not really paying as much tax as we should have for the things we expect the state to do.
    The thing people forget is that a lot of things Government does is not exactly ripe for efficiency improvements. A home help can't fit in another visit a day because they do need to spend the hour getting the patient up, washed, dressed and fed.

    You can write computer software to improve social care work, but that's incredibly expensive both up front and (nowadays) monthly on top but the efficiency is on the edges, the meetings themselves are required and can't be shortened (well they could be but that way leads to deaths).

    Basically a lot of the public sector can only be improved at the edges and a lot of other ones will seem counter intuitive - for instance it makes sense that a consultant does their own paper work in a business consultancy, it makes zero sense when a consultant does it at a hospital, they could see another couple of patients in that time.
    I can see analyzing complex systems and making improvements as something AI might in due course be useful for. In fact I don't see why Sunak doesn't lean in to the tech bro thing and present himself as the White Heat of Technology choice.
    Because he's tied to this government's record.

    Any pitch he makes now just isn't going to be heard, even if it's a sensible one.
  • bigglesbiggles Posts: 6,198
    edited May 30
    eek said:

    eek said:

    eek said:

    Nigelb said:

    Hunt on R4 just now was promising an annual 2% productivity improvement in public services if re-elected.

    LOL.

    Sort of makes you ask why he's not doing it now.
    Because it's not actually that easy - a lot of the easy wins have been done so what you are now left with is expensive automation projects and there isn't the money to do that - because it would require identifying where they are and getting consultancies in to do it.

    And Government procurement is crap at that and then brings in crap firms who rarely know what new technology can do..
    See also local government.

    If savings through efficiency were easy, it ought to be possible to point to some council somewhere that has been able to respond to austerity without cutting many activities or enshittifying what remains.

    Of course it's right to keep an eye open for where things can be made to work better more cheaply. But I'd like to see some evidence that the reform fairy can save us from the consequences of decades of not really paying as much tax as we should have for the things we expect the state to do.
    The thing people forget is that a lot of things Government does is not exactly ripe for efficiency improvements. A home help can't fit in another visit a day because they do need to spend the hour getting the patient up, washed, dressed and fed.

    You can write computer software to improve social care work, but that's incredibly expensive both up front and (nowadays) monthly on top but the efficiency is on the edges, the meetings themselves are required and can't be shortened (well they could be but that way leads to deaths).

    Basically a lot of the public sector can only be improved at the edges and a lot of other ones will seem counter intuitive - for instance it makes sense that a consultant does their own paper work in a business consultancy, it makes zero sense when a consultant does it at a hospital, they could see another couple of patients in that time.
    The more you reduce the number of workers who are capable of productivity increases the greater the productivity increases the remaining workers will need to achieve to pull the national productivity average up.

    At some point those workers still increasing their productivity wonder why they should do so if the gains from their extra productivity are going predominantly to the government or to the executive oligarchy instead of themselves.
    Hunt is asking for 2% in the public sector - the point is the public sector consists of a lot of things were efficiency is impossible - can you teach someone more efficiently (well I can give you a 6% improvement by adding 10% to class sizes but is that really a great plan?)
    In very isolated places it can work. One can imagine making the passport office more efficient through process design and automation, though it’s possible those gains have been made. My God, there’s space to redesign the average A&E for efficiency. But as you say, it’s hard with talking or care work, or policy wonks. You can’t define productivity, never mind increase it.
  • another_richardanother_richard Posts: 26,789
    HYUFD said:

    With 11% of the vote in from South Africa the ANC is on 43% and the opposition DA second on 26%.

    A narrowing of the gap since the last general election but the ANC still in front

    "South Africa election results: Counting under way after pivotal poll - BBC News" https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cjll8nr6962o

    Unless we know where those votes are from it might not mean much.

    Ayanda Hlekwane, one of South Africa's "born-free" generation, meaning he was born after 1994, said despite having three degrees he still doesn't have a job.

    “I’m working on my PhD proposal so that I go back to study in case I don’t get a job,” he tells the BBC in Durban.


    Well despite all his three degrees and PhD proposal he hasn't learnt the law of diminishing returns.
  • bigglesbiggles Posts: 6,198
    DougSeal said:

    Carnyx said:

    biggles said:

    megasaur said:

    eek said:

    eek said:

    Nigelb said:

    Hunt on R4 just now was promising an annual 2% productivity improvement in public services if re-elected.

    LOL.

    Sort of makes you ask why he's not doing it now.
    Because it's not actually that easy - a lot of the easy wins have been done so what you are now left with is expensive automation projects and there isn't the money to do that - because it would require identifying where they are and getting consultancies in to do it.

    And Government procurement is crap at that and then brings in crap firms who rarely know what new technology can do..
    See also local government.

    If savings through efficiency were easy, it ought to be possible to point to some council somewhere that has been able to respond to austerity without cutting many activities or enshittifying what remains.

    Of course it's right to keep an eye open for where things can be made to work better more cheaply. But I'd like to see some evidence that the reform fairy can save us from the consequences of decades of not really paying as much tax as we should have for the things we expect the state to do.
    The thing people forget is that a lot of things Government does is not exactly ripe for efficiency improvements. A home help can't fit in another visit a day because they do need to spend the hour getting the patient up, washed, dressed and fed.

    You can write computer software to improve social care work, but that's incredibly expensive both up front and (nowadays) monthly on top but the efficiency is on the edges, the meetings themselves are required and can't be shortened (well they could be but that way leads to deaths).

    Basically a lot of the public sector can only be improved at the edges and a lot of other ones will seem counter intuitive - for instance it makes sense that a consultant does their own paper work in a business consultancy, it makes zero sense when a consultant does it at a hospital, they could see another couple of patients in that time.
    I can see analyzing complex systems and making improvements as something AI might in due course be useful for. In fact I don't see why Sunak doesn't lean in to the tech bro thing and present himself as the White Heat of Technology choice.
    The problem with AI in the public sector is that, by definition, it can’t be in-house. So using it creatively on anything public facing is a GDPR nightmare.
    Eh? How does that work, your first statement?
    I’m guessing that your average public body doesn’t have the budget to create its own AI models or, indeed, hardware.
    Or trained staff, since it can’t pay them.
  • NigelbNigelb Posts: 72,175
    Roger said:

    Richard Burgon doesn't have any reselection issues does he?

    I would be truly gutted if he wasn't a Labour candidate.

    Going to be an interesting parliament. After the cull there will be no lefties on the Labour side and only hard right brexiteers for the Tories. Lets hope the Scots find some free thinkers
    Irrespective of any culls, or even the general election vote itself, a huge number of retirements is going to make it a radically different Parliament than the last one.
  • Nigel_ForemainNigel_Foremain Posts: 14,350

    biggles said:

    Carnyx said:

    biggles said:

    megasaur said:

    eek said:

    eek said:

    Nigelb said:

    Hunt on R4 just now was promising an annual 2% productivity improvement in public services if re-elected.

    LOL.

    Sort of makes you ask why he's not doing it now.
    Because it's not actually that easy - a lot of the easy wins have been done so what you are now left with is expensive automation projects and there isn't the money to do that - because it would require identifying where they are and getting consultancies in to do it.

    And Government procurement is crap at that and then brings in crap firms who rarely know what new technology can do..
    See also local government.

    If savings through efficiency were easy, it ought to be possible to point to some council somewhere that has been able to respond to austerity without cutting many activities or enshittifying what remains.

    Of course it's right to keep an eye open for where things can be made to work better more cheaply. But I'd like to see some evidence that the reform fairy can save us from the consequences of decades of not really paying as much tax as we should have for the things we expect the state to do.
    The thing people forget is that a lot of things Government does is not exactly ripe for efficiency improvements. A home help can't fit in another visit a day because they do need to spend the hour getting the patient up, washed, dressed and fed.

    You can write computer software to improve social care work, but that's incredibly expensive both up front and (nowadays) monthly on top but the efficiency is on the edges, the meetings themselves are required and can't be shortened (well they could be but that way leads to deaths).

    Basically a lot of the public sector can only be improved at the edges and a lot of other ones will seem counter intuitive - for instance it makes sense that a consultant does their own paper work in a business consultancy, it makes zero sense when a consultant does it at a hospital, they could see another couple of patients in that time.
    I can see analyzing complex systems and making improvements as something AI might in due course be useful for. In fact I don't see why Sunak doesn't lean in to the tech bro thing and present himself as the White Heat of Technology choice.
    The problem with AI in the public sector is that, by definition, it can’t be in-house. So using it creatively on anything public facing is a GDPR nightmare.
    Eh? How does that work, your first statement?
    Take something like cancer detection, where some interesting work has been done. You can get somewhere within your hospital, or within the NHS, analysing scans or teasing out trends and seeing if you can detect cancers early. But to be really, really effective you probably want a larger data set, and that means sharing patient info outside the system.
    I'd have thought that NHS patient info is likely to be the largest available data set.

    I don't see why it can't be done in-house.
    Global datasets are massively useful. Data can be cleansed of identifying data for this and is/will be be hugely helpful for human health. AI is accelerating the capability and, if proper safeguards are put in place is an amazing opportunity for humankind, particularly in areas such as lifestyle related disease.
  • EabhalEabhal Posts: 8,951
    eek said:

    eek said:

    eek said:

    Nigelb said:

    Hunt on R4 just now was promising an annual 2% productivity improvement in public services if re-elected.

    LOL.

    Sort of makes you ask why he's not doing it now.
    Because it's not actually that easy - a lot of the easy wins have been done so what you are now left with is expensive automation projects and there isn't the money to do that - because it would require identifying where they are and getting consultancies in to do it.

    And Government procurement is crap at that and then brings in crap firms who rarely know what new technology can do..
    See also local government.

    If savings through efficiency were easy, it ought to be possible to point to some council somewhere that has been able to respond to austerity without cutting many activities or enshittifying what remains.

    Of course it's right to keep an eye open for where things can be made to work better more cheaply. But I'd like to see some evidence that the reform fairy can save us from the consequences of decades of not really paying as much tax as we should have for the things we expect the state to do.
    The thing people forget is that a lot of things Government does is not exactly ripe for efficiency improvements. A home help can't fit in another visit a day because they do need to spend the hour getting the patient up, washed, dressed and fed.

    You can write computer software to improve social care work, but that's incredibly expensive both up front and (nowadays) monthly on top but the efficiency is on the edges, the meetings themselves are required and can't be shortened (well they could be but that way leads to deaths).

    Basically a lot of the public sector can only be improved at the edges and a lot of other ones will seem counter intuitive - for instance it makes sense that a consultant does their own paper work in a business consultancy, it makes zero sense when a consultant does it at a hospital, they could see another couple of patients in that time.
    The more you reduce the number of workers who are capable of productivity increases the greater the productivity increases the remaining workers will need to achieve to pull the national productivity average up.

    At some point those workers still increasing their productivity wonder why they should do so if the gains from their extra productivity are going predominantly to the government or to the executive oligarchy instead of themselves.
    Hunt is asking for 2% in the public sector - the point is the public sector consists of a lot of things were efficiency is impossible - can you teach someone more efficiently (well I can give you a 6% improvement by adding 10% to class sizes but is that really a great plan?)
    I also think there can be a trade-off between headline public and private sector productivity:

    High productivity at HMRC = small business spending hours on the phone talking to AI bot that takes 20x as long

    High productivity in NHS = a reduction in elective surgeries that sees people working in the trades waiting years for an operation (or not getting one at all)

    High productivity in education = more left behind children who end up with criminal records 10 year down the line
  • bigglesbiggles Posts: 6,198

    HYUFD said:

    With 11% of the vote in from South Africa the ANC is on 43% and the opposition DA second on 26%.

    A narrowing of the gap since the last general election but the ANC still in front

    "South Africa election results: Counting under way after pivotal poll - BBC News" https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cjll8nr6962o

    Unless we know where those votes are from it might not mean much.

    Ayanda Hlekwane, one of South Africa's "born-free" generation, meaning he was born after 1994, said despite having three degrees he still doesn't have a job.

    “I’m working on my PhD proposal so that I go back to study in case I don’t get a job,” he tells the BBC in Durban.


    Well despite all his three degrees and PhD proposal he hasn't learnt the law of diminishing returns.
    Depends. Are their degrees fully funded by their tax payers? If so, he’s very sharp.
  • Nigel_ForemainNigel_Foremain Posts: 14,350
    edited May 30
    DougSeal said:

    Carnyx said:

    biggles said:

    megasaur said:

    eek said:

    eek said:

    Nigelb said:

    Hunt on R4 just now was promising an annual 2% productivity improvement in public services if re-elected.

    LOL.

    Sort of makes you ask why he's not doing it now.
    Because it's not actually that easy - a lot of the easy wins have been done so what you are now left with is expensive automation projects and there isn't the money to do that - because it would require identifying where they are and getting consultancies in to do it.

    And Government procurement is crap at that and then brings in crap firms who rarely know what new technology can do..
    See also local government.

    If savings through efficiency were easy, it ought to be possible to point to some council somewhere that has been able to respond to austerity without cutting many activities or enshittifying what remains.

    Of course it's right to keep an eye open for where things can be made to work better more cheaply. But I'd like to see some evidence that the reform fairy can save us from the consequences of decades of not really paying as much tax as we should have for the things we expect the state to do.
    The thing people forget is that a lot of things Government does is not exactly ripe for efficiency improvements. A home help can't fit in another visit a day because they do need to spend the hour getting the patient up, washed, dressed and fed.

    You can write computer software to improve social care work, but that's incredibly expensive both up front and (nowadays) monthly on top but the efficiency is on the edges, the meetings themselves are required and can't be shortened (well they could be but that way leads to deaths).

    Basically a lot of the public sector can only be improved at the edges and a lot of other ones will seem counter intuitive - for instance it makes sense that a consultant does their own paper work in a business consultancy, it makes zero sense when a consultant does it at a hospital, they could see another couple of patients in that time.
    I can see analyzing complex systems and making improvements as something AI might in due course be useful for. In fact I don't see why Sunak doesn't lean in to the tech bro thing and present himself as the White Heat of Technology choice.
    The problem with AI in the public sector is that, by definition, it can’t be in-house. So using it creatively on anything public facing is a GDPR nightmare.
    Eh? How does that work, your first statement?
    I’m guessing that your average public body doesn’t have the budget to create its own AI models or, indeed, hardware.
    It doesn't need to; it can use no-code/low-code models, aka white label, that they can adapt for their own purpose in the same way as a business builds a website using Wix.
  • eekeek Posts: 28,585
    edited May 30
    biggles said:

    eek said:

    eek said:

    eek said:

    Nigelb said:

    Hunt on R4 just now was promising an annual 2% productivity improvement in public services if re-elected.

    LOL.

    Sort of makes you ask why he's not doing it now.
    Because it's not actually that easy - a lot of the easy wins have been done so what you are now left with is expensive automation projects and there isn't the money to do that - because it would require identifying where they are and getting consultancies in to do it.

    And Government procurement is crap at that and then brings in crap firms who rarely know what new technology can do..
    See also local government.

    If savings through efficiency were easy, it ought to be possible to point to some council somewhere that has been able to respond to austerity without cutting many activities or enshittifying what remains.

    Of course it's right to keep an eye open for where things can be made to work better more cheaply. But I'd like to see some evidence that the reform fairy can save us from the consequences of decades of not really paying as much tax as we should have for the things we expect the state to do.
    The thing people forget is that a lot of things Government does is not exactly ripe for efficiency improvements. A home help can't fit in another visit a day because they do need to spend the hour getting the patient up, washed, dressed and fed.

    You can write computer software to improve social care work, but that's incredibly expensive both up front and (nowadays) monthly on top but the efficiency is on the edges, the meetings themselves are required and can't be shortened (well they could be but that way leads to deaths).

    Basically a lot of the public sector can only be improved at the edges and a lot of other ones will seem counter intuitive - for instance it makes sense that a consultant does their own paper work in a business consultancy, it makes zero sense when a consultant does it at a hospital, they could see another couple of patients in that time.
    The more you reduce the number of workers who are capable of productivity increases the greater the productivity increases the remaining workers will need to achieve to pull the national productivity average up.

    At some point those workers still increasing their productivity wonder why they should do so if the gains from their extra productivity are going predominantly to the government or to the executive oligarchy instead of themselves.
    Hunt is asking for 2% in the public sector - the point is the public sector consists of a lot of things were efficiency is impossible - can you teach someone more efficiently (well I can give you a 6% improvement by adding 10% to class sizes but is that really a great plan?)
    In very isolated places it can work. One can imagine making the passport office more efficient through process design and automation, though it’s possible those gains have been made. My God, there’s space to redesign the average A&E for efficiency. But as you say, it’s hard with talking or care work, or policy wonks. You can’t define productivity, never mind increase it.
    The passport office is a bad example believe me those gains have been made - last December Mrs Eek got her new passport in 4 days and 1 day of that delay was because I missed the post the night before when sending her old passport back in.

    DVLA is an example where improvements could be made but a lot has already been done and what is left is weird areas - where things are manual for reasons that don't make sense until you get into the weeds. 1 example is change of address where the driving license is often the first document updating placing the most awkward checks on the DVLA...
  • PulpstarPulpstar Posts: 78,406
    HYUFD said:

    With 11% of the vote in from South Africa the ANC is on 43% and the opposition DA second on 26%.

    A narrowing of the gap since the last general election but the ANC still in front

    "South Africa election results: Counting under way after pivotal poll - BBC News" https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cjll8nr6962o

    Results (So far)
    https://results.elections.org.za/dashboards/npe/
    vs 30 day polling ave
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2024_South_African_general_election#Opinion_polls

    Results (Partial)
    ANC 42.6%
    DA 25.8%
    EFF 8.5%
    MK 7.9%
    PA 4.7%
    IFP 1.7%

    30 day polling ave
    ANC 42.1%
    DA 22.4%
    EFF 9.9%
    MKP 11.6%
    PA 0% ?
    IFP 3.7%

    Polls look reasonably close for the main parties, partial results though so there may well be some shuffling as more regional results come in.


  • FlatlanderFlatlander Posts: 4,721
    edited May 30

    biggles said:

    Carnyx said:

    biggles said:

    megasaur said:

    eek said:

    eek said:

    Nigelb said:

    Hunt on R4 just now was promising an annual 2% productivity improvement in public services if re-elected.

    LOL.

    Sort of makes you ask why he's not doing it now.
    Because it's not actually that easy - a lot of the easy wins have been done so what you are now left with is expensive automation projects and there isn't the money to do that - because it would require identifying where they are and getting consultancies in to do it.

    And Government procurement is crap at that and then brings in crap firms who rarely know what new technology can do..
    See also local government.

    If savings through efficiency were easy, it ought to be possible to point to some council somewhere that has been able to respond to austerity without cutting many activities or enshittifying what remains.

    Of course it's right to keep an eye open for where things can be made to work better more cheaply. But I'd like to see some evidence that the reform fairy can save us from the consequences of decades of not really paying as much tax as we should have for the things we expect the state to do.
    The thing people forget is that a lot of things Government does is not exactly ripe for efficiency improvements. A home help can't fit in another visit a day because they do need to spend the hour getting the patient up, washed, dressed and fed.

    You can write computer software to improve social care work, but that's incredibly expensive both up front and (nowadays) monthly on top but the efficiency is on the edges, the meetings themselves are required and can't be shortened (well they could be but that way leads to deaths).

    Basically a lot of the public sector can only be improved at the edges and a lot of other ones will seem counter intuitive - for instance it makes sense that a consultant does their own paper work in a business consultancy, it makes zero sense when a consultant does it at a hospital, they could see another couple of patients in that time.
    I can see analyzing complex systems and making improvements as something AI might in due course be useful for. In fact I don't see why Sunak doesn't lean in to the tech bro thing and present himself as the White Heat of Technology choice.
    The problem with AI in the public sector is that, by definition, it can’t be in-house. So using it creatively on anything public facing is a GDPR nightmare.
    Eh? How does that work, your first statement?
    Take something like cancer detection, where some interesting work has been done. You can get somewhere within your hospital, or within the NHS, analysing scans or teasing out trends and seeing if you can detect cancers early. But to be really, really effective you probably want a larger data set, and that means sharing patient info outside the system.
    I'd have thought that NHS patient info is likely to be the largest available data set.

    I don't see why it can't be done in-house.
    Global datasets are massively useful. Data can be cleansed of identifying data for this and is/will be be hugely helpful for human health. AI is accelerating the capability and, if proper safeguards are put in place is an amazing opportunity for humankind, particularly in areas such as lifestyle related disease.
    Of course, particularly for the rarer problems.

    But for common-ish diseases, I'd have thought that the NHS would have enough.

    Are patients not also more likely to agree to share their data with 'Our NHS' than GlobalCorp AI?
  • kle4kle4 Posts: 96,578
    edited May 30

    According to Stodge, who I trust, pollsters are predicting 72-78% turnout, which is utterly massive. You can get 14/1 odds on a 75%+ turnout, if you think that's value.

    Some voters and their voting intention is being significantly uprated.

    Which ones?

    I'd be astonished by such high turnout and have been going through opposite route. 14/1 seems about right.
  • NigelbNigelb Posts: 72,175

    According to Stodge, who I trust, pollsters are predicting 72-78% turnout, which is utterly massive. You can get 14/1 odds on a 75%+ turnout, if you think that's value.

    Some voters and their voting intention is being significantly uprated.

    Which ones?

    Anyone else had a flutter on this one ?

    If it's really over 75%, then I'm going to be very happy indeed about the election result. Whoever wins.
This discussion has been closed.