The Populus aggregate data for March featured in the chart above sets out clearly that the big voter shift since 2010 hasn’t changed. Ed Miliband’s LAB is very reliant on those LD voters from last time who switched in the first year of the coalition staying on board.
Comments
Basingstoke new prices:
CON 1/10 (from 1/20)
UKIP 10/1 (from the 20/1 I highlighted yesterday)
Lab 16/1
LD 20/1
Euro VI - Scotland - TNS subsample=101
Lab 27%
SNP 26%
Con 17%
LD 14%
UKIP 10%
oth 5%
http://www.tns-bmrb.co.uk/uploads/files/TNSUK_DataTables_20140409.pdf
They have still not paid out on:
- 21 Oct 13 / 21:58 (CEST) Single 1 Will Anyone Leave The UK Cabinet By End Of 2014? – Will Any Cabinet Member Leave Yes @ 5/6 – £100.00 */366****/000****/*.
... and reply:
- "We have checked Bet receipt */366****/000****/*. Unfortunately, we have no available resources to settle this bet yet. We advise you to respond to this email and include a site that shows the result and we will be happy to settle it for you. At the same time, the bet will be settled accordingly."
Huh?? They want me to send a link proving that Miller has resigned??
How much churn in the polls is from miss remembering our are the pollsters sophisticated enough to eliminate it?
Just looking at the Labour percentages below, one could conclude that these returnees are actually Labour voters coming home. They are actually Labour who had voted LD. 2005 was Iraq and 2010 was general disillusionment..
2010: 29.0%
2005: 35.2%
2001: 40.7%
Of course, I thoroughly respect UKIP's democratic aspirations. THey are doing a good job. But not for me, thanks !
I'm not sure I believe they have lost that much of the2010 vote in real life.
The Tories might be back to their pre-budget position, but Labour are losing support as well! As previously, appears as though it's Ukip that are benefiting.
'Jim Devine ordered to pay manager £18,000 damages'
... Devine was successfully sued by Marion Kinley after the former Labour MP falsely claimed she was under police investigation and helped herself to money that she was not entitled to.
... Lord Bannatyne rejected Devine’s evidence as “incredible”.
In court, Ms Kinley had maintained that the ex-Labour MP had made damaging statements about her to “cover up his own actions”.
The former office manager told the court in Edinburgh: “They were vindictive. They were just set out to cover up for himself with absolutely no regard for what effect it would have on me.”
Ms Kinley said it had been claimed she was being investigated by the police and Special Branch. She added: “He also stated I had helped myself to bonus money I was not entitled to. I had stolen significant sums of money while office manager and the reason I did this was because I had a serious gambling problem.”
... Lord Bannatyne said such behaviour supported Ms Kinley’s stance that there was a campaign by Devine to maliciously “put forward untruths”.
Ms Kinley was supposed to return to work that October. When Ms McDonald told the politician when his office manager was coming back, the court heard his response was: “No she f***ing won’t.”
The judge agreed that Ms Kinley had been defamed by the former MP and said: “I have had no difficulty in concluding that the defender [Devine], when he made these statements to the pursuer [Ms Kinley] and others, knew them to be false.”"
http://www.scotsman.com/news/politics/top-stories/jim-devine-ordered-to-pay-manager-18-000-damages-1-3371274
Consider these three things - Any one of which can be defended as possible or even likely
- Labour's polling lead declines slowly over the year, broadly in line with the trend of the last year, to either a small or no lead before the election.
- Labour's vote share according to the polls declines slightly during an election campaign. (There is no Peter Mandelson this time).
- There is a modest , Kinnock-style, underperformance on the day for Labour.
You could make a case for each of these individually, or all 3. 2 of these, together, could lead to Con Most Seats.
No 2 if it happens, may not be easy to spot at the time. It will probably look like noise - wobbles up and down.
No 3 - The pollsters will be factoring in all they can to prevent it - They will want their polls to look like the outcome, and adjust accordingly. But their task is hard.
6% of your alleged core vote is substantial, in round figures it represents a 20% loss of the 2010 voters.
We have had very, very few full-sample Scottish polls of Westminster VI since 2010, but here for example is what Lord Ashcroft's polling found (SLAB got 42% in 2010):
CON 18%, LAB 40%, LIBDEM 6%, SNP 31%, UKIP 2% (1,039 adults in Scotland were interviewed by telephone between 4 and 8 October 2013.)
http://ukpollingreport.co.uk/blog/archives/8320
In addition, he conducted a huge 10,000 sample (!!) Westminster VI poll back in the springtime of 2013:
CON 16%, LAB 45%, LIBDEM 8%, SNP 23%, UKIP 5% (10,007 adults in Scotland were interviewed by telephone and online between 22 Feb and 9 May 2013.)
Those Westminster Voting Intention findings are presented on Page 29 of this report:
http://lordashcroftpolls.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/10/Camerons-Caledonian-Conundrum.pdf
Lots of other info and links here:
http://lordashcroftpolls.com/2013/10/camerons-caledonian-conundrum/
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/scottish-independence/10755898/Revealed-The-five-star-suite-Alex-Salmond-enjoyed-at-the-taxpayers-expense.html
It is not the floor plan, views or number of rooms. It is just that I can't see Eck fitting into that bath.
http://m.scotsman.com/news/politics/top-stories/scottish-independence-snp-trident-for-pound-plan-1-3369902
Hythe House is a beautiful listed house only 50 minutes by train from Euston (from nearby Rugby) for the cost of a flat in London! Liberal Democrats preferred - the previous owner apologised for not being there to welcome us (in 1984) because it was her stint at Greenham Common - she left bottle of Champagne though!
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-26965375
Lord Myners resigns, but his report carries on like some ethereal wraith....
It seems as though some people in the 'ungovernable' organisation may not have liked the findings of his interim report. But the best line is this: ... Instead, they'll damage the group's values themselves.
Is there a split of who many are Other and how many are DNV?
Surely if even 10% of Labour's support comes from DNV10 that's got to be a big risk in terms of softness of the vote? That would be 4 percentage points right off the top - enough to shift them to the low to mid 30s.
- "Sorry took time before I understand your bet. I got confused of Maria Miller's resignation."
I'm sure he is not alone!
Never mind. It ended well:
- "Let me settle this for you. Total winnings is 183.33"
What I am having trouble understanding is that if 20% of current Labour support falls into that category why do the different filters imposed by the different pollsters on certainty to vote not result in bigger differences in their results? Presumably the pollsters are using different techniques which have broadly the same effect at the end of the day.
The unfiltered results presumably have Labour in the low 40s to achieve their current polling.
Sad Scott and his numpty Labour pals, little to bother them. What happened to labour's £3000 per night number they have banged on about for years, was their abacus broken.
YouGov poll asked what each leader's age is from just a recent photo.
Most got Cameron right at 47 (mean result), Clegg nearly right at 46 (he is 47) but thought Farage to be older at 53 (he is just 50), Miliband younger at 42 (he is 44) and Boris 48 (he is 49).
So with this narrow age spread, will the voters go for the younger (inexperienced), older (wiser? and experienced) or those they know most about, or a plague on all their houses?
Age ranges given for each leader:
Cameron: 38-60
Clegg: 37-56
Farage:40-65
Miliband:34-51
Johnson: 38-61
http://yougov.co.uk/news/2014/04/09/Farage-turns-50-but-public-think-hes-older/
I seem to be restored to Diplomacy, no cheating, just caused some confusion when my son set up an account and joined another game. This gave the impression of multiple identities, but not in the PB games.
pic.twitter.com/8LsL8qn3mc
If something is worth saying once, it's worth saying 100 times....
A bit like ed is crap.
"Normal" rates really should not be much of a guide.
But as I have said before laughing at or mocking Salmond is not even relevant to winning the referendum vote. Energy being spent on this is energy wasted by a No campaign that needs to get out and sell the Union in a positive way.
(*) Although I haven't had a drink since Friday, so the amount of blood reaching my head is reaching dangerous levels...
Man running Labour party to quit ?
NO have said that Scotland is 100% useless, broken and could never ever do anything, how do they expect to win with that as their slogan. 100% of all papers produced by NO/Westminster claim Scotland is crap, do you think that is encouraging people to stay in the union. What great brains are thinking up these wonderful ideas.
Welcome back to the Diplomacy game, Mr. Foxinsox.
Mr. Flashman (deceased), he didn't send out voting ballots with the preferred candidate's face on them, did he?
Mr. G, just joined the thread so this is neither against nor for you, or the specific unionists to whom you refer, but I fear the unpleasantness expressed here may well be reflected more widely. That's one of the reasons why I think a potential split will be acrimonious rather than amiable, sadly.
"You only make repayments when your income is over £21,000 a year. … Each month you pay back 9% of any income over £21,000."
https://www.gov.uk/student-finance/repayments
3x £9,000 = 27,000
That's slightly more than 1x the national average wage. Most people who want mortgages borrow up to 5x (some borrow more, but that's not usually wise).
If they can only borrow a smaller amount to buy a house, then - over time - house prices will moderate to compensate*. Which would be a good thing.
* excluding P/SPL of course because the sources of demand are different
"It seems our speculation about a possible “voteless recovery” last month may have been premature...
The Conservatives’ renewed strength in the polls may owe something to a well-received budget from George Osborne, but when we take a longer view it becomes apparent that this latest narrowing is in fact the a continuation of a very gradual trend that has been proceeding, in stop-start fashion, for more than a year – as our excellent colleague Anthony Wells noted in his year-end review. In the early months of last year, Labour leads over the Conservatives were in double digits. This fell to under six points in the summer, before rebounding slightly in the autumn. Since November 2013, though, the narrowing has continued, and the lead has fallen from just under seven points to just over three.
Regular readers of this blog will know that we are cautious about identifying trends in what is often stable opinion, and also wary of using figures on polling leads, which are subject to more volatility and random variation. The underlying pattern here is however clear – the gap between the top two parties is steadily narrowing. Our main chart suggests this is the product both of rising Conservative support and falling Labour support, and also suggests that this is happening despite no decline in support for UKIP, who many argue are the main cause of recent Conservative weakness".
http://nottspolitics.org/2014/04/09/polling-observatory-35-march-2014-politics-fast-and-slow
Glaciers melt slowly.
Hope you sell the little cottage soon .... but where do the staff live presently ?
I suspect most people will be slightly embarrassed to take the money, so the pub owner will pocket the tax cut (edit: but without appearing greedy to his customers)
It's like when WH Smith first launched their honesty boxes for newspaper - they found that their takings went up substantially because people would rather pay £1 (or whatever) than queue to get 20p in change.
So not foxinsoxuk.
I dropped the UK out of respect for the Diplomacy game designers who have made Wales, Clyde and Edinburgh all parts of "England"
47% NO 37% YES or 56/44 if dk's excluded
Last poll was 48/39
https://twitter.com/search?q=#indyref&src=hash
It's a vote killer and Willetts should be sacked. The man's an idiot.
They need to get beyond the lies told by Salmond, the non-existent legal advice, the uncertainty of whether and what terms Scotland would be able to re-negotiate membership and instead focus on how the EU treats small countries in its determinations.
Suppose in 10 years time an independent Scotland is a signed up member of the EU on whatever terms it has to take. There is a new policy on agriculture that will have a material effect on Scotland. What chance has Scotland got of its views being taken into account (a) as part of the second largest economy and second largest net contributor to the EU budget and (b) as a country of 5m people?
There are endless examples of how the interests of small countries are simply ignored when the big boys carve the cake. At the moment we are one of the big boys. Why would we want to give that up? Better together.
Graduates benefit most from higher education, in terms of increased life opportunities and/or earning potential. It is therefore morally right that they should pay for that education.
There are, of course, some subjects - principally STEM - where the government may decide that the national interest is to subsidise individuals selecting these degrees and I wouldn't have an issue with that. Similarly, there is a strong national interest in making the system means blind so that everyone can achieve their individual full potential.
Within those constraints, I don't care precisely how the system is structured, although they way they have done it seems rather complex.
"Those who make a habit of following political stories on newspaper front pages – or via highly charged political Twitter feeds easily forget that most voters are paying little to no attention to the events which are filling their days. Even major political set-pieces like the budget, Prime Minister’s Questions, or the Clegg-Farage debates barely register with many voters. Indeed, most of the population are at work during PMQs, unable to tune in to a television or a politics live blog, while the vast majority had much more interest in the latest goings on in Albert Square or Coronation Street than the duelling rhetoric of Nigel and Nick. Even economic news, which is of more immediate interest to many voters, tends to trickle down as a gradual process of diffusion, either in a general sense among the public that things are getting better or worse for the country or more directly as people feel better about the pounds in their pocket, and more eager to spend them. In practice, the fallout from political events is usually slow and sluggish, as it takes a long time for voters to notice and respond to things which are a long way from their everyday concerns.
Shifts in public opinion therefore tend to take place slowly, over long periods of time (with rare, but important, exceptions such as the Cameron veto and the “omnishambles” budget). Political commentators, however, exist entirely in the “high frequency politics” world, and interpret every day’s and week’s events in terms set by this world, projecting them onto the wider public, whose indifference is so far from their own everyday experience that it is hard for them to keep it in mind. Every minor event is expected to produce a sharp public reaction and every momentary twitch in the pulse of public opinion is attributed to the stories attracting Westminster buzz...
It is important to bear in mind that the important, and lasting, changes in public opinion take place gradually, often too slowly to perceive without the benefit of months of data, because as election fever takes hold in the Westminster village, the focus on “fast politics” will become ever more intense. There will be many moments and many stories that are presented to us as ‘game-changers’ or turning points. In most cases they will be nothing of the sort, while the real action takes place away from the noisy slapstick comedy playing out on the news channels. Millions of voters will begin settling on their choices, nudged this way and that by forces which are, to some extent, predictable. The regularity of the tidal forces which move the “slow politics” of voters’ shifting opinions allow us to make modestly informed forecasts about the direction public opinion will take next, based on the lessons of history."
No further comment required. I won't even highlight the bit about the Clegg-Farage debate.
A major review of the schools system in Wales says the Welsh government lacks a long-term vision for education and does not do enough to support teachers.
The Welsh government asked the worldwide Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) to conduct the review in 2012.....
The most recent Pisa international education tests, which are run by the OECD, ranked Wales bottom in the UK.
The OECD review said: "From an international perspective, the performance of 15-year-olds in Wales on Pisa is low overall, and there are too many students performing at low levels.
"The Pisa 2012 reading and science assessments showed that almost one in five Welsh students did not achieve level two which is considered the baseline of proficiency at which students begin to demonstrate competencies to actively participate in life."
"For mathematics this proportion was even higher, almost 30%. These levels are among the lowest in OECD countries."
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-wales-26962501
It may be easy to get attention grabbing headlines, but the system is better for students in almost every way than the system it replaced.
Either way this mornings poll indicates that again the majority of Scots are not swayed. NO will win come 18th September.
And to paraphrase .... it's suddenly gone quiet over there ....
The answer is very simple.
In 2000-1, the UK government did not need to borrow a penny to finance its annual expenditure. More than that, the central government net financing requirement showed a surplus of £14.3 billion for the year.
Move forward ten years to 2009-10 and the annual financing requirement of central government was £218.3 billion.
And for those who prefer to measure accrued debt as a ratio of GDP rather than annual cash borrowing:
- in 2000-01 Public Sector Net Debt was 30.1% of GDP.
- in 2009-10 Public Sector Net Debt was 151.7% of GDP.
Or in pounds, at the end of March 2010, UK Public Sector Net Debt was £2,228,308,000,000 or 2.2 Trillion. And this figure doesn't include a further £200 billion of Quantitative Easing undertaken by the Bank of England and guaranteed by the taxpayer.
From boom to bust in under a decade under Gordon and Labour.
Now who do you think should be blamed for condemning our children and grandchildren to a lifetime of 'debt enslavery'?
One problem was the Treasury's aversion to anything with the word "tax" in it, as a graduate tax would not have the problem of unemployed or low-paid graduates having a huge debt hanging over them (even if they'd not in fact need to repay it).
Another is Nick Clegg's immediate capitulation (which will cost the LibDems dear, imo) which meant the policy was not as closely examined as one might have hoped.
The irony is that income-contingent loans might actually be a good solution to other problems, such as support for new enterprises, or development in deprived regions.
http://intouni.blogspot.co.uk/2013/12/numbers-of-successful-applicants-to.html#!/2013/12/numbers-of-successful-applicants-to.html
"UCAS’s mid-December ‘End of Cycle Report’ determined that a record-breaking number of applicants had been accepted in to full-time undergraduate study in the U.K. after the 2013-14 admissions cycle. This peak of 495,600 successful applicants marked a variation in the trend in applications following the tuition fee increase, which had seen both applications and university take-up drop in number significantly. Also on the rise is the number of successful applicants from lower-income backgrounds, an increase credited mainly to the work of widening participation organisations in conjunction with university outreach programmes."
The squealing seems in fact to be coming from middle class parents.
Thinking about your accounting issues, I note you said that costs aren't a problem, lack of income is. Of course, low income is more of a problem because your costs are too high. You may well be able to save quite a bit by claiming for equipment, heat, light, travel etc. I note you have recently purchased a new computer, for example.
Lets get back to free Uni fees, let grads study anywhere in the UK and pay for it by slashing the overseas bribes budget.
They always go wrong and it's even worse in shops where you are buying booze. By the time the girl has come over to confirm you are over 18, it's quicker to go through a manned till. Hate the things - just a penny pinching way to save on staff costs.
It also leads to the utterly fallacious idea that in order to get on, you need a degree. Whilst that is true for some occupations (e.g. law, medicine, architecture), for others it is not. I, for instance, am a pleb who ain't got no degree, yet ah'm doing very well, yes siree.
Fees is just one problem caused by increasing the number of students so massively.
I just need to sell more books (my expenses, as it were, are very low). I'm hoping 1-4 short stories I'll have out in the next year or so will help to function as advertisements to attract people to my full-size books. There's also a small chance the second Sir Edric comedy will be bundled with the first as a traditionally published book, which would be splendid.
Edited extra bit: incidentally, thanks for your advice and the sentiment behind it.
But Michael Gove, I think, might argue that we all benefit from a better educated and enlightened populace -- the traditional defence of a liberal arts education.
Edit 14/1 on George Osborne does seem value does it not?
And I'm doing well with 14/1 tips.
The more open question is turnout among traditional "yeah, I suppose so" Labour and Tory voters. That's why GOTV will be crucial (and incidentally why I'm spending 18 months of my life canvassing nearly every weekend - knowing who to get out on polling day is absolutely vital).
Using an unrounded comparison month over month, NO is essentially unchanged, YES slips 2 points, undecided makes up the difference +3