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politicalbetting.com » Blog Archive » The 2014 Rallings and Thrasher local elections forecasts
politicalbetting.com » Blog Archive » The 2014 Rallings and Thrasher local elections forecasts
For two decades Professors Rallings & Thrasher have been producing forecasts ahead of the May local elections based on their local by-election model. Usually these are “revealed” at a special briefing at the Institute of Government organised by the Political Studies Association which is what I’ve been attending today.
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The tweet says LD will lose 340, the bar chart says they will lose 350.
They are defending 691 seats, so that would be just over/under half.
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"Grand total: Lab 1,763, C 1,535, L Dem 691"
http://ukgeneralelection2015.blogspot.co.uk/p/may-2014-council-election-page.html
IMO, a combined NEV share of 63% for the Conservatives and Labour is likely too high. I really can't see either party doing better than it did last year.
I think UKIP are defending c.40 seats (mostly defections) so 80 gains would leave them with 120 council seats. I think they'll do a bit better than that, more like 150-200, with c.40 in London.
"Labour would have won 29% of the national equivalent share of the vote, the Conservatives 26%, UKIP 22% and the Liberal Democrats 13%."
http://www.parliament.uk/briefing-papers/RP13-30/local-elections-2013
If, as many expect, a reasonable chunk of the UKIP vote share goes back to the Tories when there's a serious choice in 2015, that doesn't bode very well for the chances of PM Miliband.
Edit: The LD share is pretty respectable too.
I think 22% for UKIP was an NEV rather than % of actual votes cast, but I might be wrong.
And as a final final note about the Kippers, it is hugely early days if they are serious about graduating from being a protest group to being a political force. We have just seen the LDs get a shellacking as they passed a critical milestone as a party and are now at a key juncture whereat they need to define themselves and what they are for in order to maintain a constituency.
UKIP are of course well off that but that's not to say they won't craft a rounded political philosophy in the years ahead. If they are playing the long game, and that is surely the plan, then all the policies and stuff will follow.
My $0.02 is sceptical because I can't see NFarage at the helm of what will have to be a watered-down version of today's party. But it is all to play for and there is no need for NFarage to be the leader of the fifth or sixth generation and iteration of the party in future.
The EU Rankings.
It's a bit like with the US Senate, where only one-third of the seats are contested every two years, but two-thirds of the states have Senate elections, because each State has two Senators. Only more complicated because some local authorities elect all in one go and some wards are represented in both County and District level elections.
Edited extra bit: speaking of portions, and returning to the fish and chips debate earlier, Nash's in Leeds is quite nice. I think it closed (temporarily) but has since reopened.
@Avery
ROFL - you must have caught us on an upbeat day.
1. It's a terrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrriiiiiiiiiiiiiiiibbbbbbbbbblllllllllllleeeeeeeeeeeeee night for Labour.
Or
2. Labour's not doing well enough.
Con 38% Lib-Dem 28% Lab 23% UKIP N/A
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_Kingdom_local_elections,_2009
Lab + 450
Con - 260
LD - 270
UKIP + 100
Others - 20
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/economics/10793681/Without-reform-it-would-be-best-for-Britain-to-leave-EU.html
What's nice is that he is clearly genuinely open minded and brings the pros and cons for both sides on the EU debate. As one of the City's leading economists, his view also makes clear that the eurosceptic side can not be dismissed as an ideological thing: he considers all the facts before concluding we should probably leave.
I also would note that he endorses the joining of NAFTA - perhaps the first 'serious' figure to mention this in the recent EU debate. I hope the many posters on here, from both right and left, that mocked me for this suggestion when it was just my idea, will now take note that a Very Serious Person has endorsed it. It's a shame they couldn't previously accept this as a serious policy suggestion on its merits.
Lib Dems have 1 councillor guaranteed elected in Hart DC where 3 Lib Dems face just 1 Conservative and 1 Labour opponent
The other point here is why would this be such an important issue for the rump EU? I can understand EU nations wanting to look out for their citizens already based in the UK, but who is really going to kick up a huge fuss about it to the extent they risk not having an export deal? France and Germany won't care, beyond making sure that there is an easy system in place for the highly skilled business elite, and Eastern European nations still have plenty of other Western European nations their potential emigrants can go to, even if they did have the influence in the EU to matter.
If he was in the UK the positions would be reversed...
It is worth noting that - in Spain - the proportion of people over the age of 16 in work has now above the average for the past 25 years.
CON -160
LAB +500
LD - 340
Ukip ???
A row of ??? for UKIP means all the other numbers are just a finger in the air? If UKIP are plus 200, who is down 200? Their work seems to tell us nothing about this.
How much will the loss of so many more Councillors for the LibDems prevent them from having the funding to wage much of a ground war in May 2015? My understanding was that Councillors was a significant source for a chunk of the funding for the LibDems (well, that and dodgy criminals who leg it abroad, of course...).
Only joking Mark!
I think the free movement of people issue is, as you say, objectively not something our EU friends should get het up about, but they do (cf Switzerland). I guess it comes back to EU ideology in the end - it's one of the Four Founding Pillars or whatever they call it.
Bear in mind also that, if we want the fullest possible free market in Services - very much in our interest - then free movement of workers is difficult to argue against. You can't logically provide Services with no barriers if there are barriers to moving around the people who might provide those services.
I agree that the Roger Bootle article is pretty good. This bit should be engraved in stone and attached to Nigel Farage:
[Exit] would not be the pain-free, risk-free arrangement that many eurosceptics imagine.
As for NAFTA, it's the political difficulty of it which we were pointing to when you raised it a while back. Again it may not be logical, but it would be presented as giving 120 million Mexicans access to the UK.
Overall, though, Bootle is right: we should try reform first (absolutely nothing to lose by that), and, if that doesn't work, consider exit, bearing in mind that exit is not a pain-free panacea.
As I've said before (although this might have been lost in our recent exchanges), I still think that a referendum would result in a Stay In result. Therefore, trying to leave without trying for reform would be a big mistake, risking locking in the worst aspects of what we already have.
2008 -> 2013
Germany $36,009 -> $37,479
France $34,982 -> $34,239
Spain $27,136 -> $25,250
Ireland $51,721 -> $46,175
Italy $31,263 -> $28,374
UK $40,027 -> $37,849
I always find it astonishing that Ireland has a GDP per capita 33% above the UK.
(can't find the link now!)
But at the same time, Ireland is home to most of Europe's computer manufacturing: Dell, and Apple both build PCs there; Intel (as I mentioned) fabricates chips there. In your space, there is a lot of pharmaceutical production in Ireland. Financial services is also important: a lot of banks have put their back office functions in Dublin.
Interestingly, and uniquely, Ireland's biggest export partner is the US. Almost a quarter of Irish exports go there.
As for NAFTA, it's absurd that it would be presented as giving 120 million Mexicans access to the UK as NAFTA does not have freedom of movement. It is a simple trade pact, and would be presented as such. Even the US worries about undermining certain aspects of the manufacturing base wouldn't apply, as we don't have any labour-based manufacturing any more. The one exception would be automotive, but Mexico is too geographically far for a heavy goods industry to be threatened.
I could potentially get on board with a push for fundamental renegotiation, if that's what was being genuinely tried, but it isn't. A genuine renegotiation that would make EU membership a good thing would look to cut the CAP (which is not only growing, but also bringing back market distortions) or at least get us an opt out, limit the amount of unskilled migration and allow us to sign our own trade deals. But none of these things are being tried. Because Cameron isn't interested in doing what is necessary, he's interested in having a good media story that sounds like he does. It's just like when he campaigned on civil liberties: he's more interested in the headline than the substance.
GoodEvening. I noticed several yellow poxes, sorry boxes were published on the last thread.
Meanwhile this for your edification:
http://blogs.spectator.co.uk/douglas-murray/2014/04/are-you-fit-to-be-a-liberal-democrat-a-response-to-nick-cohen/
Also Helmers rebuttal of the SUN's accusations against him.
HELMER Roger OFFICE
09:29 (7 hours ago)
HELMER
The Sun: False and defamatory
I was deeply shocked today by today’s report, and editorial piece, in the Sun. It claimed that I had said “It’s fine to despise gay people”, that “being gay is a mental health issue”, and that I had suggested that “homophobia is OK”. None of these propositions is true, or remotely relates to my views.
I was phoned (as I was driving, and concentrating, at least in part, on the traffic) by the Sun’s deputy political editor Steve Hawkes, who asked about my views on homosexuality.
In the course of a short conversation, I simply made the point that people were entitled to their personal preferences. It is morally acceptable to prefer heterosexuality over homosexuality, or vice versa. Most of us prefer one or the other. So let’s look at the Sun’s claims:
“It’s OK to despise gay people”: How the Sun gets from “It’s OK to have personal preferences” to “It’s OK to despise gay people”, I’m not sure.
“Being gay is a mental condition”. In about thirty seconds I was able to identify two blog posts in my extensive blog archive in which I make the point explicitly that homosexuality is not a disease.
“Homophobia is OK”. As a technical linguistic point, I have questioned the use of the term “phobia” in this context, since it has a specific meaning in psychiatry which does not (it seems to me) apply in this case. But I have also written very clearly (and in the same piece) that prejudice, hostility and violence against homosexuals are wrong, and totally unacceptable.
UKIP supporters will recognise the principle at work here: the mainstream media are engaged in a feeding frenzy against UKIP, and are prepared to twist the facts to suit their agenda. It seems that prejudice and hostility are alive and well at the Sun. This journalist’s boss is (I assume) the Sun’s Political Editor Tom Newton Dunn, the son of Bill Newton Dunn, the Lib-Dem MEP whose seat is under threat in the East Midlands.
I guess the point I'm making is that Spain is recovering more quickly than most people realise. I would be very surprised if Spain was not the fasting growing Eurozone economy over the next five years.
If it turns out that Mr Helmer did make the comments alleged, will you be the first to post it to politicalbetting?
1. UKIP's polling in the low- to mid-teens on GE VI as it is and their voters are more inclined to turn out. On a local election turnout (about three-fifths to two-thirds that of a general election), that should push them up into the high-teens by itself. Postal voters turn out, and older voters are both more likely to be postal and to be UKIP.
2. Local elections are a good opportunity to protest in a way that people may not at a general election, and UKIP is the current protest party of choice.
3. The simultaneous Euro-elections will have a carry-over effect. There will be vote-splitting but there'll also be coat-tails to Farage's MEPs, not least from the additional publicity UKIP will get, both in the media and with the free postal leaflet (that the Euro-election polls are placing them in the mid- to high-twenties or even low-thirties can't be ignored).
How many wins that crosses over into is another matter. Where the local elections are this year is not a battlefield that's anywhere near as favourable to them as last year's was. Even so, if they end up with less than 20% national equivalent, it'll be a poor effort in the circumstances.
That said, that we're considering 20% at a local election for UKIP a 'poor effort' shows just how far they've come.
Those numbers also end in 2012, you need to nudge Spain, France and Italy down a little more, and push Germany up a bit.
I wonder which one is right?
http://order-order.com/2014/04/29/hacked-off-seek-eu-diktat-to-force-through-new-press-laws-watson-backs-brussels-directive-on-media-ownership/
That'll end well.
I expect we'll get a few more such stories in the coming days though.
https://twitter.com/LouiseMensch
"Louise Mensch @LouiseMensch · 2m
the news Patrick Mercer MP will stand down v unwelcome to #UKIP. They will not win that by-election. Will stamp on their Euros news cycle."
Can't decide which is worse....helmer's comments or his sorry attempt at self justification after them.
It is possible that the EU ends the CAP. (Not likely, but theoretically possible.) It will not end free movement of labour.
"R4 reporting Mercer has been suspended for 6 months."
Will that be with full pay? Resigning and causing a by election or keeping the money?
I'm surprised they think that figure is going to drop back down to 16% this year.
I expect they'll enjoy the papers tomorrow as they sup their subsidised Pinot Grigio
http://elpais.com/elpais/2014/04/29/media/1398776277_178997.html
Still, troughing MP's should bring the cost of food and drink in the HoC into line with prices outside first. Then pick on the troops, if they dare.