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How the pollsters fared in Scotland – politicalbetting.com
How the pollsters fared in Scotland – politicalbetting.com
?????????? So, how did the polls and models perform in Scotland?TL;DR: the polls did very well indeed, the models did not do quite as well.Let's start with the polls. The predicted vote shares below were, on average, within 1.2pts of the actual vote shares for each party (1/13) https://t.co/WpXu8KsiSF pic.twitter.com/CCrWlo0dfx
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The SNP faces an additional financial black hole of almost £500,000 after its general election disaster.
A huge drop in the number of nationalist MPs means that the amount of taxpayer support received by the party is expected to fall to about £350,000 from £1.3 million at present.
However The Times has learnt that the Westminster group will also miss out on almost £464,000 that came in through donations from its MPs.
Last year Stephen Flynn, the SNP leader at Westminster, increased his parliamentarians’ annual contribution to pooled funding, which pays for central research staff, by 3 per cent to £11,893. That will reduce dramatically with the loss of 39 nationalist MPs leaving it with only nine.
Unlike at Holyrood, where MSPs pay 6 per cent of the money they are given to employ office staff to a central pot, the Westminster group’s standing orders say that all MPs should contribute equally to pay for researchers and press officers “at a level set by the group”.
https://www.thetimes.com/uk/scotland/article/snp-finances-lurch-into-crisis-after-general-election-disaster-0q05b5lln
Cleverly's been a naughty boy, it would appear?
Inverness [etc] seat did feel like a bit of a surprise nonetheless though, given the relative size of the swing. It’s one of many mini-stories of this election I’d like to know more about.
I also think they didn't pick up tactical Unionist voting in a lot of places.
Least favourite were in Birmingham.
Pissing it down here.
Mr. Eagles, was it Unionist tactical voting or the standard Lab-Lib stuff?
https://www.theguardian.com/politics/article/2024/jul/09/tony-blair-keir-starmer-labour-immigration-far-right
Thanks Tone.
There was no Alba candidate in his constituency.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/formula1/articles/c0w45knx10ro
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/world-news/2024/07/09/russia-ukraine-zelensky-putin-war-latest-news7/
Also, India's playing at being 'neutral'.
https://x.com/TiceRichard/status/1810409259827638529?t=J77EBvXqOLA5YBlbEeiJwA&s=19.
As I predicted on election day or the day after, it looks like the Lichfield to Crewe bit of HS2 is going to be back on in short order.
"Rail minister appointment fuels hopes of HS2 revival
Network Rail chief Lord Hendy is likely to be an advocate for extending the network"
"His appointment as rail minister may represent the best chance of saving elements of the scheme, including a link from the Midlands to Crewe that would allow full formations of HS2 trains to travel at top speed through to Manchester, leading figures in the sector said."
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/business/2024/07/09/keir-starmer-rail-minister-lord-hendy-fuels-hs2-hopes/
Again, none of this is very insightful - that we face a major demographic challenge is hardly new news.
Will he pay reparations to Ukraine for the damage his support of Russia has caused them?
Agree that it’s hardly news that the next few years will be difficult.
*Hamilton won in 2021 and no matter what Michael Masi's corruption did will convince me otherwise.
When it comes to Gaza though we do have people who think any IDF action is fine and dandy.
https://x.com/MrJoeGooch/status/1810348679984824475
Attacking hospitals is appalling behaviour; but it appears only Israel gets opprobrium for it. Even if it's unclear it was their fault.
I know I'm whistling in the wind btw, but feel better for it ;-)
And I'm sorry: if you're vociferously angry about the hospital in Gaza, then you should be equally vociferously angry about the Russian attack: especially as the blame is not really in doubt.
But there is silence from them. Because, I fear, to use your words, there are people who think any Russian action is fine and dandy...
But he's clueful enough to know how to get HS2 back on track and to kick off a number of quick win projects. For instance there are 60 miles of track that were they electrified opens up 2million track mile of freight a year shifting to electric...
So, on house building, Labour will come up with a plan. Sounds like new towns are on the agenda. Then they will hit a wall of requirements in law to consider emissions, runoff etc etc. All very vague and poorly thought out.
These will be used to tie up any progress. A large number of lawyers will be happy and the Supreme Court will end up hearing some cases.
*No it isn’t.
I dislike these generalisms. It would be a bit like me saying 'all the Tories on here want to see Labour fail even if it means the country fail'. I could say that but I couldn't name a specific poster who'd actually said that.
It is a serious issue for FPTP. The SNP have gone from one of the most efficient vote/ seat ratios to one almost as bad as Reform. Labour massively improved their efficiency across the whole country but especially in Scotland.
The point is that it is possible for this to swing back in the same way if the Labour government starts to struggle. Complacency almost killed Scottish Labour and they would be wise not to take the current state of affairs for granted.
https://x.com/JustinWelby/status/1810354191594053643?t=ikJh06EJiLkD9uZfi5erZQ&s=19
Every hospital in Gaza has now been attacked, and most are no longer functioning.
It was one of my biggest disappointments with Sunak. The line must at least go to Crewe to have any real benefit, as well as Euston being done properly.
As for the number of deaths in Gaza, that seems like ridiculous nit-picking on your part. No, we don't know the exact number of deaths - nobody can, especially since Israel refuses to let any journalists in and has a habit of killing them if they do get in. But it's pretty obvious that you don't cause that much damage to a heavily populated area without killing a lot of people.
London, Birmingham, Crewe, Manchester, Bradford, Leeds, Sheffield, Midland Hub, Birmingham, London
Given the current estimate for refurbishing Parliament it's probably cheaper...
When networks move to 5G SA it will operate essentially the same way as a 4G network does, but with better efficiency and performance (mainly due to more advanced modulation and efficient signalling), and offer more capacity where newer and wider bands are used.
There's nothing wrong with 5G technology, we are simply in a transition.
Perhaps we need to be restricted to one tweet per day as well. Not for headers, obviously, where 27 tweets per header is parsimonious.
I called Reform the "Famous Five". Like magic, from the Leeanderthal Man:
Today's Plan.
Cheese on toast in Ashfield then off to London with a suitcase full of common sense.
Back in Parliament tomorrow morning with the Famous Five from @reformparty_uk
https://x.com/LeeAndersonMP_/status/1810251347062595629
(I'm not spending today's photo on a picture of cheese on toast in a cafe I can't quite identify.)
Now they all make sense and there is a certain amount of logic in doing all 3 projects at the same time but I don't think anyone has explained it so people see a vast bill for work at Euston without understanding the full scale of what is required.
They still have Holyrood but that may only be for another 2 years and the clock is ticking. People are blaming Swinney, and he is the opposite of inspirational, but he was left with an appalling legacy of incompetence and denial from the Sturgeon/Yousaf era. The parallels with Sunak and the Boris/Truss era write themselves. So far, there is little evidence of Swinney making a decisive break, just as Sunak failed to do.
What they need to do is focus on delivering devolved government in Scotland, especially in health and education. This will not be easy.
The funny bit is that the air vents look worse and are way more visible than the original cutting would have looked like...
for example? I mean on PB, because it sounds like that is what you are talking about. (Of course there are people in the whole world who think that).
Back in 2018 there were fabricated stories spread about "just 6 disabled MPs". which was generated by misinformation from campaigners (not fact-checked even by the Daily Politics; I challenged them and they said "no time to do it.") who wanted attention, then pretending *they* represented all the ~20% of disabled people in the population.
A constant issue - sometimes the only "disabled" people are seen as wheelchair users, sometimes it is only the faction who dominate a local lobby group, or where the experience of different disabled people goes against the measure that is desired by the first group.
The figure of "6" has become a still-referred-to standard number by media self-referencing since 2018 - eg a "fact" link in the G or the T refers back to an old G or T article where they ballsed it up last time; mistakes or lies self-perpetuate.
Here's one from June, where the G where Lucy Webster was slightly less inaccurate than usual, and draws a distinction:
There were, in fact, just five in 2021. Or, at least, only five who publicly identified as disabled. Even assuming there were a few more disabled MPs who hadn’t declared themselves as such, it is an extremely poor showing.
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/article/2024/jun/03/disabled-mps-uk-politics-election-craig-mackinlay
The actual number was at least 40-50, from public sources, when I checked. The "5" did not even include the PM Theresa May, who had Type I diabetes and a sensor on her arm.
This can be seen by driving along any road built in recent decades.
* this is based on a random story I heard about Glasgow schools having serious budget issues so unable to hit teacher staff ratios to qualify for some money. The idea that one half the SNP intentionally screwed a different set of SNP people may be taken as read..
Or perhaps all very vague and deliberately so.
Keep things vague and it creates more demands for lawyers and consultants.
There would be plenty of other services to relocate though, and not sure how many basements there are in the library that you’d need to miss!
This is especially hard with Israel/Gaza and allied matters, as there is hardly such a thing as an agreed fact.
At the moment media and opinion on all sides pretend that their great concern is human suffering. This is false. If it were true Sudan, to take one egregious example, would be full of journalists and camera crews.
The human suffering thing is an instrument in a battle about Who? Whom?
At least in Manchester there are sensible options, the sanest one i've seen for Leeds is a two tier station and a lot of bridges..
47.34% Leicester South
45.35% Birmingham Perry Barr
40.39% Edinburgh West
34.87% Ilford North
33.34% Blackburn
33.21% Dewsbury and Batley
31.57% Slough
30.12% Rochdale
30.09% Bradford West
29.65% Birmingham Ladywood
OK So they didn't see the muslim Labour vote collapse, but how on God's green earth did they ever ever have Edinburgh West going SNP by 9%. Checking the final MRP it was a Lib Dem hold by 6%, still absolutely miles out and a bigger miss than Leicester East was in the last but one MRP (25.4% out vs 23.5%)
I'm not seeing that as a great comeback.
Not running out HS2 to Crewe when Sunak cancelled it was the worst kind of economic vandalism. At least now we will be able to actually use the track that has been built out to full effect.
Along with the collected Enid Blyton (which TBF is more his level).
Lab 49.8 Lab 45% Lab 59.1% Lab 41% Lab 53.33% Lab 57.99% Labour 66.60% Lab 27.17 (Survation, Greens 2ND) LAB 33.9
YG / NS / IPSOS / Savanta / Focaldata / More in Common / Survation / EC
I think given the recent displays by management, there's only one good option, and that's not a private sector solution. Government should step in before (as I predict) the regulator folds and bails out shareholders at the expense of bill payers.
Thames Water to tap investors for funds as it will run out of cash by next June
https://www.theguardian.com/business/article/2024/jul/09/thames-water-funds-debt
..The slow-burn crisis at Thames Water stepped up in March, when it said shareholders – which include the pension funds USS and Omers – had U-turned on £500m of promised funding, claiming Ofwat had made the company “uninvestable”.
The Guardian has since revealed that Thames’s board approved a £150m dividend just hours before the announcement...
As for, "we don't need more coverage", in 2024 you cannot take a train in the UK and hold a call. This is totally unacceptable, this should be common-place on every line as a start. So yes, we need more coverage and more masts to support it.
As for "we don't need masts in places with five people", again this is wrong. They are required anyway for the ESN and so they should also be used to provide coverage for the MNOs. To their credit the Tories did make this a priority under the SRN.
There is no reason we cannot have close to 100% geographic coverage. Our neighbours in the Netherlands, Denmark, Norway compete on a much higher level.
If people hate masts, they should support my reforms to have much taller ones. Then we would need far fewer. Right now rural areas are left behind because masts cannot be built because the locals keep rejecting them, I would overrule these in every case, if they need to be hidden fine but they should be allowed, not rejected.
https://x.com/FT/status/1810377729902071853
Consultants and lawyers do get rich though which seems to be the prime purpose of such projects.
Any government which proceeds with such projects deserves the blame which inevitably results.
So yes the Conservatives do deserve blame for the HS2 disaster - not for cancelling it but for starting it in the first place.
And any HS2 cheerleader who wonders why other infrastructure hasn't been invested in might remember that the money was instead spent on HS2.
https://blogs.bl.uk/living-knowledge/2023/07/50-facts-about-the-british-library.html
(Still working on the Hi-de-Hi Party.)
What can he point to as achievements in Manchester while he’s been mayor?