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This morning’s Populus online poll became the third pollster in a week to show The Conservatives ahead, it is also the first online pollster to show the Blues ahead since March 2012.
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BTW, is anyone aware of the correlation (if any) between party affiliation and IQ. It's been covered in the US a few times (mostly by smug Democrats), but I don't recall any similar research in the UK.
I'm awaiting developments for now.
Discuss.
It'll be interesting to see whether Farage's suggestion Labour switchers (to UKIP) are stickier than Conservative switchers. If that proves true then it'll be amusing, and terrible for Miliband.
Her: Are you having a bet today?
Me: No, but I have a few quid on UKIP for Thursday
Her: What's UKIP?
I explain who UKIP are and what the bet is
Her: I know who David Cameron is and Nick Clegg. And there's a yellow group that no one votes for, and I've heard of the BNP.
I guess she will be a non voter
However, something tells me we won't have too many media commentators pointing this out as they used to do for Lab/Lib Dem. Of course crude conclusions on a natural majority for the Left were wrong then, as much as it's wrong for the Right now, but I'll enjoy watching the Toynbee tendency trying to explain it away.
http://www.theguardian.com/politics/blog/2008/nov/03/greenpolitics-liberaldemocrats
The things connected to the latest housing bubble are good for some and bad for most.
The good for some bit is helping Con while the bad for most is going to Ukip instead of Lab.
They only had to find 13 honest MEPs but it defeated them and they managed to find only nine.
It reminds me of a thought experiment. You have a bag that contains 100 poker chips that are all either red or black. 95 of the chips are one colour and 5 are the other colour, but you don't know whether that's 95 red and 5 black, or 95 black and 5 red.
You have to say what colour the 95 are, based on drawing three random chips out of the bag. So you draw three, and they're all red.
What are the chances the 95 chips are red? What are the chances the 95 are black?
And that's why UKIP is obviously the most corrupt.
On the GE polls, the picture is really quite consistent across the various pollsters: Con and Lab neck-and neck as you say with Labour perhaps a smidgen ahead, UKIP showing well, and the less said about the LibDems the kinder. The Labour lead has been eroding steadily, so this doesn't look like a temporary blip.
Of course, we can't know for sure whether the trend from Labour to the Conservatives will continue or go into sharp reverse, and we certainly don't know how that chunky segment of current UKIP supporters will behave in 2015. Stuff happens in politics, and there's a whole year to go. So there's lots of uncertainty, and outcomes varying from Con Maj to Lab Maj remain plausible.
Still, we can make a central forecast: it seems more likely than not that the improving economy will help the Tories, that the Kipper share will drop back as the election approaches (probably benefiting the Tories more than other parties, although maybe not by much), and that with their well-honed ground campaign techniques the LibDems will scrabble their way back to a slightly better position, albeit well down on 2010.
All that points to Con most votes, probably short of a majority, as the central forecast, but with considerable uncertainty.
The Guardian had an interesting piece the other day, suggesting that UKIP supporters' attitudes are closer to Labour supporters than Conservatives.
"An average of 71% of Ukip voters agree with five leftwing ideological statements, far above the Conservatives (43%) or even the Liberal Democrats (65%). They are only a little behind Labour (81%)."
http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2014/may/16/ukip-divided-left-right-cut-labour-support
Sometimes the Tory leadership fights them off and goes on to prosper. Sometimes they win and the Tories are in opposition for a generation. But ultimately, the wheel turns again and a new leadership emerges that is at peace with the world.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ditchers
Explains the lack of panic.
"there's a yellow group that no one votes for". Ouch!
It's more likely that more people with higher IQs tend to move to London and work in white collar jobs and therefore a greater proportion of them drift into a metropolitan mindset
At the moment, polling parity has been achieved by a fall in Labour vote rather than an increase in Tory vote.
I think they are still fairly confident that the core Labour vote from 2010 (29%) plus the LD defectors and the inability of the Tories to capture any new voters will give them a seat majority in 2015.
@Richard_Tyndall
This is not true and you should know better* than to quote the partial reporting and smears of the Guardian. The clause referring to a ban on racists joining was not disgarded it was replaced as it was deemed unworkable and replaced with a ban on anyone who had been a member of the BNP in the past joining. This was something that could be verified rather than the spurious accusations of someone being a racist.
As such it served to tighten the rules against racists joining the patry and sets UKIP apart from the other parties - including the Tories - who are apparently quite happy for former BNP members to join their ranks.
*I have said you should know better but of course we all know you do not know better and are happy (by your own admission) to ignore facts and 'details' as you call them when they get in the way of your smears.
Richard
Do you have a record of the 'before' and 'after' clauses?
Bearing in mind that this period of UKIP's history saw the party holding joint strategy discussions with the BNP, there may have been other motives for alllowing 'racists' in but excluding former BNP Members.
See this paragraph from the 1999 Guardian article:
Shortly before the 1997 general election, Mark Deavin [BNP officer negotiating with UKIP] spoke freely of his plans to undercover researchers from Searchlight magazine and The Cook Report, who had posed as emissaries from Jean-Marie Le Pen's Front National. One necessary step, he said, was to get rid of the BNP leader John Tyndall ("who is actually an obstacle") and replace him with Deavin's chum Nick Griffin. This would leave one other obstacle. "If Blair becomes prime minister," Deavin predicted, "the BNP will be the official opposition in the inner cities, in working-class areas. The UKIP will be the opposition in the shires, the county areas, the middle-class opposition. That party is a serious opposition to us in middle England, but, if we had the resources, we could tear it to pieces." [My emphasis].
PWC have calculated that house proces are 18% below 2007 prices in real terms.
Help to buy is not free money. For a fee the govt are helping with a deposit. Borrowers pay back at a typical, not cut price, interest rate. I have seen one at Lloyds of 5.19%
Back in March the numbers of people 'helped' in the Help to Buy was - wait for it --- 17000 (from the BBC). Are these numbers going to ruin the economy? The whole point of mortgages is to lend money to people. It been happening for generations. The job of banks Is actually to lend money! The danger to the economy was that they were NOT lending money.
Only with some demand can we get more new houses built.
BNP IQ is a reflection of the fact that their base is in smaller, poorer and more deprived areas. I suspect the UKIP IQ stat (based on 2008 figures?) is now out-of-date, and would now be similar to SNP levels, at around ~102.
The more interesting finding for me is the correlation between high childhood intelligence and above average interest in politics. I'd say that's definitely true - as it probably also is for interest in science, drama, art, career success, healthiness, and life satisfaction - because the more intelligent tend to have a greater hunger for knowledge. They enjoy learning new things, and know how to leverage that.
If you take 1 point from UKIP and add it to the Tories and take 1 point from Labour and add it to the LibDems giving 36, 34, 13 and 9, on UNS it gives the Tories 308 seats to Labour's 303 with the LibDems reduced to 12. In such circumstances who would bet against the Tories continuing in office? If we factor in 1st time incumbency in almost 100 Tory seats, does it really need a 7% Tory lead to result in a slim majority even if the perceived wisdom is that it does.
Shouldn't read too much into national polls at the time of the European elections. Labour down and others up is what you would expect. Although the Tories holding firm is more significant.
As for your outline, I agree with much of what you say, though I'm doubtful that UKIP are going to drop as much as is commonly assumed and I'm also doubtful that the Lib Dems are going to defy political gravity as well as is commonly assumed. I see it as a toss-up right now as to who will be largest party. Much will depend on the main parties' reaction to the results this weekend.
I saw Peter from Putney's suggestion for me on the last thread, and I'll add that to the worklist.
@Redpeter99: Nick Griffin says Nigel #Farage isn't a racist. Glad we sorted that one out. It could have been embarrassing. @BBCNews
I seem to remember this is one of the pieces of red meat that was ditched last time round.
What else would a Conservative majority government uniquely deliver? (aside from the EU referendum in 2017)
P.S. I know there's the Hunting Ban repeal but I doubt that would pass with anything short of a Tory majority of 80+
Shame it's 13 years old.
More of the same on growth an unemployment ?
*Innocent Face*
Thankfully, the voters will have finished delivering their verdict in around 82 hours. So hopefully we can then all move on.
The high point for me was when when Farage when all Dave, and became a shallow PR spiv and surrounded himself with ethnic minority candidates/supporters to showing he was trying to detoxify UKIP.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/shared/election2010/results/region/7.stm
http://survation.com/new-scotland-referendum-and-voting-intention-poll-by-survation/
Dan Hodges @DPJHodges 39m
@JefferyThomas88 I think Ukip will win on Thursday.
Anyway, I am off for a bit.
This was stamped on quickly by the leadership and members who were involved were thrown out. Funnily enough Edwards is now standing as one of the MEP candidates for AIFE which seems to have attracted as their candidates a lot of the people thrown out of UKIP for racist comments.
I sent a text to my girlfriend saying "I can't wait to get home, and kick your puppy all night long"
I had to explain to the RSPCA, it was predictive text gone wrong, "Lick" had become "kick" and I'll let your imagination work out what "puppy" should have been.
twitter.com/Nigel_Farage/status/468304302147383296/photo/1/large
Help to buy and the pension changes on their own might have been enough to spark a mini consumer boom before the election but combined with the flood of money fleeing the BRICs it's all going pear-shaped.
Question is will it go boom before the election or after.
"Good weekend?"
"Yeah, met a girl in a club and spend all Sunday kicking her puppy, if you know what I mean."
* Yes, I know it didn't happen IRL.
You think the money will go rushing back to the BRICs ?
What will cause this cataclysmic event ? Banks not borrowing going bust ? Cash purchases of houses somehow defaulting ?
"That doesn't make much sense, because they'd never vote UKIP anyway. All they'd be doing is lowering the bar for UKIP candidates to get in."
Perhaps another bunch who are too intellectually self-confident?
(*I'll also leave it to your imagination to work out what the equivalent is)
There's no reason to assume this trend won't continue until the general election.
pic.twitter.com/PGKmOFnw9C
The Tories say "We don't believe in individual choice".
And the Lib Dems "We have never eaten muesli".
40,000 people took part in NatCen Social Research survey through MailOnline ahead of European elections this week
A clear majority want to see work restrictions on EU migrants and say immigrants should adapt to UK's values
44% say Britain should leave the European Union, while 40 per cent disagree, according to the survey
48% say EU membership has been bad for Britain and 63% are against cash going from rich to poor countries
44% want to see the top rate of tax reduced and 51% support the exploitation of shale gas through fracking
57% say gay couples should have the same rights as heterosexual couples to marry, with 30% against
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2632603/Revealed-What-MailOnline-readers-said-Europe-immigration-tax-crime-gay-marriage-huge-online-survey-40-000-people.html
In case anyone is interested, there was a new post added today.
http://politicalbookie.wordpress.com/2014/05/19/should-the-observer-have-consulted-a-bookmaker/
It's increasing showing it's unpleasant side, and something I cannot support in terms of it's social attitudes.
Most of these will also have a first-time incumbency boost, unless the previous MP is still assiduously e-mailing the constituency every week in the hope of winning it back ;-)
This also allows restricted punters to get a decent sum down; despite being cut to ribbons by PP I was able to get c. £300 down over 26 bets.
The reality is that there's two arguments in politics "never let an attack go unanswered" and "if you're responding you're losing". I imagine both have been made by the same PR men that like to smear others and then say they're rubbish however they react.
Demosthenes of Athens was a splendid proto-Farage though; in the third Philippic he points out that Philip of Macedon "is not only not Greek and not related to the Greeks, but not even from a decent barbarian country - from ghastly Macedonia, a country from which you could never even buy a decent slave."
(οὐ μόνον οὐχ Ἕλληνος ὄντος οὐδὲ προσήκοντος οὐδὲν τοῖς Ἕλλησιν, ἀλλ’ οὐδὲ βαρβάρου ἐντεῦθεν ὅθεν καλὸν εἰπεῖν, ἀλλ’ ὀλέθρου Μακεδόνος, ὅθεν οὐδ’ ἀνδράποδον σπουδαῖον οὐδὲν ἦν πρότερον πρίασθαι.)
This meme of yours about 4 of the 13 MEPs being corrupt started with you saying :
"The problem is that, as has been pointed out already, the average UKIP MEP is more likely to be imprisoned than the average Romanian immigrant. 2 of UKIP's 13 MEPs have been jailed and 2 more had to pay back £40 grand between them. "
So you are basing the principle of corruption on either being jailed or having to pay back expenses.
If we are looking at that as the basis for corruption in the Tory party we see that 114 of your MPs prior to the last election including many of the MPs who are now cabinet ministers and one who is now Prime Minister had to pay back monies that they should not have claimed. Does that mean you consider David Cameron and his 113 Tory colleagues to be corrupt? By my reckoning that 114 is a far higher percentage of the total Tory presence in Parliament at that time than the percentage of UKIP MEPs who you are calling dishonest.
By the way, you keep quoting 2 UKIP MEPs jailed out of the 13 elected. Who were they?
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/health/background_briefings/international/290661.stm
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Compulsory_sterilisation_in_Sweden
http://www.economist.com/node/155244
UKIP are building up other representatives however, Suzanne Evans seems the most promising at the mo.
http://youtu.be/_aIXF3yYd_k
* "Unless it affects me personally." Natch.
None of the UKIP MEPs elected in 2009 has been jailed.
Tom Wise (elected in 2004) was jailed, although he had been expelled from UKIP two years previously.
It is a legitimate debate. If we were talking about the Kwazoo Indians* there would be no issue - every man jack of us in particular Seaumas Milne would be lining up on the side of the Kwazoo Indians.
No modern day successful political party has come to terms with how to frame the debate. From not talking about it (Lab/Con) to hitting it head on and attracting charges of racism. As I have said, looking at the election literature, it is just nasty and harks back to the worst of the BNP/NF.
Plus of course if that (immigration) is it (as it seems to be for UKIP) then they will peter out pretty quickly.
One thing however is for sure - if there is an answer to the how to solve this question, then Nigel ain't it.
@isam - your country needs you.
Kippers seem to say Farage can't be racist, as he has a German wife.
So what, Hitler had a German wife too.
The two UKIP MEPs jailed were Tom Wise and Ashley Mote. The two forced to give money back were Graham Booth and Derek Clark.
Did the 114 Tories have to pay back a five figure sum each? I doubt it. They're bent too, of course, but marginally less bent. Most expected actually have to do something for their money, unlike UKIP who quite openly just trough. Also unlike UKIP, they don't dishonestly solicit votes on the basis that they are NOTA. UKIP categorically are The Above.
As I've said, the charge of exceptional corruption is supported not merely on the percentage of UKIP MEPs on the fiddle - although it is damning - but on the fact that, among those aspiring to be MEPs, they couldn't find even 13 that were clean. Every other party manages to find several hundred or even several thousand, and none, unlike UKIP, would tolerate the likes of Neil Hamilton.
The Conservatives pick up a lot of 2010 Lib Dems, offsetting more than half [34 out of 63] of the voters they lose to UKIP. This poll also has the Tories pick up one net voter from Labour. That is definitely something to keep an eye on.
This is of course blasphemy but is it possible, just possible, that contrary to all the predictions to the contrary Cameron and Osborne have found support in the centre ground that pretty much outweighs what they have lost to the right?
A ridiculous idea I know. Pretty much everyone on here except Richard Nabavi is persuaded that Cameron is a political incompetent who specialises in losing elections, even those he won near 100 additional seats in.
Still...