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politicalbetting.com » Blog Archive » If the trend in the ComRes marginals’ surveys is seen in Lord Ashcroft’s weekend mega-poll then LAB is in very serious trouble
The main reason why we have marginals polling at all is to find out whether what is happening in the key seats is different from the country as a whole.
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But even so, Peter Kellner warned a while ago that Con could get a majority with a national vote lead of just 5% - all it needs is a 1% swing outperformance in the marginals due to 1st term incumbency - which applies in almost all Con held marginals.
ie National lead 5% - 1% swing outperformance means no seats move between Con and Lab and then Con gain 15+ seats from LD to get to a majority.
Would it happen? Maybe, maybe not. But history shows that 1st term incumbency does give a tangible boost and a 1% swing outperformance is not a massive differential.
It is important to bear in mind that it was not a UKIP event.
It was a Winston McKenzie event.
Everybody (including most people in UKIP) knows that he is a mega-booliak.
In response to someone who wrote "I'd imagine that UKIP organisers went through an agency. But the band behaved inappropriately. If they committed to a booking they should have delivered" I'm fairly sure that McKenzie would have booked them himself, not via an agency, without reference to anyone else in UKIP. Reports on Twitter suggest that he may have told them that it was for the opening of a new shop. McKenzie has a track record not just of joining several different political parties, but also of organising schemes, events, programmes, whatever, and making a complete mess of them or getting nowhere with trying to get funding.
And now...they're not.
Of course, we'll know more when Ashcroft speaketh
Con 4/9 (SJ)
UKIP 4/1 (Bet365)
Labour 8/1 (Betfair)
Greens 200/1
Paul Baggaley 200/1
Andy Hayes 200/1
Liberal Democrats 250/1
Bus Pass Elvis Party 500/1
Patriotic Socialist Party 500/1
Stop Commercial Banks Owning Britain's Money 500/1
Monster Raving Loony Party 1000/1
Newark is turning into one of Mike Smithson's tip failures, which are talked of much less often than his tip successes, funnily enough. He tipped LAB when they were at... err... 3/1. Whoops.
In the interests of full disclosure, I actually agreed with Mike's tip. But then, I have never pretended to be the world's finest political gambler.
Cue: Obama, Galloway, yawn...
PB "Wisdom of Crowds" - Euros
(Ladbrokes line bet)
UKIP 27% (28%)
Lab 26% (26%)
Con 23% (23%)
LD 8% (8%)
Grn 8% (7%)
AIFE 2% (1.5%)
One might almost think that the folk taking the exam peeked at the answers.
The most interesting finding from that PB "Wisdom of Crowds" result chart is the vast number of Lib Dem respondents vis à vis their VI, and the low number of Labour respondents. Lack of balance has always been a problem on PB threads. Non Lib-Con posters tend to get ruthlessly bullied.
Number of respondents:
Con 78
Lab 54
LD 47
UKIP 19
Grn 9
oth 14
Total 239
https://user.nojam.com/pid/50/live/averagebygeparty.php
Err...
CON Target No. 1
Hampstead and Kilburn (Lab Maj = 42)
PP:
Lab 2/7
Con 7/2
LD 6/1
UKIP 80/1
It is also consistent with the view that I expressed the other day that Cameron and Osborne seem to gaining as much in the centre as they are losing to the right.
It is also consistent with my hypothesis that a significant part of any recovery in Labour's support is likely to be in their safe seats where Brown reduced turnout significantly thus increasing the efficiency of Labour's vote to levels that are unlikely to be repeated.
All of which makes it inevitable that Lord Ashcroft's poll will show the opposite!
Ed might be more able than his media team, but they still have a lousy track record on the campaign trail.
Mike could have 99 losers, but if he bets enough on 1 long-shot and wins he could generate a reasonable return. Not sure I would like the risk profile of that bidding strategy personally.
Thanks for coming Ed! Don't hurry back.
LDs may be slightly over represented relative to current polling, but are not too far from 2010 share. We get plenty of abuse too, not least from the ScotNats...
What's particularly interesting is that the tiny Con-Lab swing in the marginals (in Comres) is in the same poll as a national lead that's quite favourable to Labour in comparison to other surveys - i.e. would ComRes have shown a swing from Lab TO Con in the marginal had they reported the kind of 2-3% lead that's been typical for May so far?
I'm filing this one under 'sceptical but open-minded' for now.
The labour candidate in the marginal ward of St elites in Sutton told me last night that the LDs rang her yesterday to try and get her to help on polling day with their GOTV operation.
This shows a sign of desperation in that they are just randomly calling people in the area to help as their activist base has shrunk to near on zero.
When the LD was told by the Lab candidate that she was the Lab candidate the LD went into a mortified silence and then said " but this can't be right we had you down as a supporter"
They are living in denial and tomorrow could be fun....
- There's value in the Con price
- The ComRes figures are on the top side for the Tories in the marginals
- There are local factors in play in H&K.
This is a very important point in my view. If the Tories keep their nerve in the face of UKIP's rise and resist the temptation to tack to the right rhetorically, as they did last year, then they have an historic opportunity to transfer that "nasty party" tag to UKIP and could become a party that once gain wins 40% plus of the vote in GEs.
I don't know the constituency, but met Chris Phelps on a train a few years ago - he did a pretty good job overall*. Admittedly - I'd assume - the LD would probably be more inclined than most to vote tactically, but Glenda is stepping down isn't she? Have the constituency boundaries changed in Labour's favour?
I'm just wondering why the same result in H&K next time wouldn't imply a broadly similar result nationally, all other things being equal
* I donated £250 to his campaign
edit: given that he (or his team) never wrote to say 'thank you' I'm unlikely to do so in future. A computer generated letter, a quick top&tail and a stamp doesn't cost much, folks.
I'm not a great believer in marginals polls. Pollsters are used to weighting to produce balanced polls for national bases and marginals are not to be expected to follow that. It's not so much the sample size as the non-standard base that concerns me.
The non-tactical vote has apparently increased. The Lib Dem vote share has not fallen by as much as the UKIP vote share has risen. The two main parties will surely make some inroads into reducing that in an intense marginals campaign.
My uninformed guess is that should help the Conservatives further: the 2010 Lib Dems who are undoubtedly moving to Labour have presumably already done so, meaning that any further reduction in Lib Dem vote is likely to comprise more pro-government Lib Dems. Kipperologists can advise on how casual Kippers might break if successfully squeezed: based on last night's polling I don't make any assumption it would favour either main party particularly.
- "There are local factors in play in H&K"
Err...
CON Target No. 2
Bolton West (Lab Maj = 92)
PP:
Lab 1/6
Con 7/2
UKIP 80/1
LD 80/1
The Hague and Howard years were difficult as the tories tested euro-sceptic nonsense and scapegoat politics to destruction in the small part of the playground that Blair was willing to let them use. Being in Coalition with the Lib Dems has given Cameron and in particular Osborne cover to do a lot that needed done anyway.
There is a happy congruity between principles and political polling at the moment for the tories. Long may it last.
I would caution against the common assumption that the Conservatives are going to overperform in London compared to nationally.
That belief was also erroneously widespread in 2010 and runs counter to demographic change.
If there's an overwhelming feeling against the incumbents eg sleaze ('97) then chaos ('10) the opposition can happily remain policy-less and define itself solely as being not the incumbent. (Although that remains fraught with danger as the Cons found out in 2010 with no OM.)
Now where are we? A recovering economy, which is slowly affecting more of the population (I disagree with you about the failure of trickle down), and a rapidly changing globally competitive environment which sees not only immigration into the UK but competition from previously emerging economies forcing down factor prices. In that sense no western political party has "the solution".
But apart from the strong narrative that it is an uneven recovery (surely anecdotal) and that the Tories remains toffs and in it for themselves, which are universal and constant Lab memes, nothing is in particularly broken and so there is no over-riding reason to fix it.
Everyone has blithely assumed that lefties who voted tactically last time but didn't like the result will vote tactically again (depending on their seat)
An equally valid response on an individual level would be "hang tactical voting, I'm going to vote for what I believe in/NOTA"
I am not saying that it here are no LD supporters around but when Tom. Brake has to advertise for volunteers for tomorrow on twitter and over half of the LD incumbents are standing down then something may be in the air..
As I said yesterday I don't think the council will change hands but tomorrow is going to be a real bunfight in SW London.
I asked you yesterday for a prediction. Mark..what is it in both Kingston and Sutton?
(as for the rest: thanks)
Top man, went all out at GE2010 very organised on top of all the activity.
But H&K was not only a fiefdom for GJ but is chock-a-block of a) champagne socialists; and b) grim tower blocks. The latter are natural labour supporters (or were!) while the former are, um, natural labour supporters.
It will take a lot to shake off the feeling of H&Kers that they are not a noble outpost in the fight against the harsh tories.
"Mr Osborne will say: “Political parties on the Left and the populist Right have this in common: they want to pull up the drawbridge and shut Britain off from the world.
“They want to constrain foreign investment in our economy, and deprive us of the British jobs that it has created in industries from car manufacturing to energy. They want to set prices, regulate incomes, impose rent controls, wage war on big business, demonise wealth creation, renationalise industries — and pretend that they can re-establish control over all aspects of the economy.”
This is exactly the line he should be taking. And he now has the credibility to do it. The tories cannot outKipper Kippers and they should not try.
A related issue which intrigues me is how much of the process was deliberately planned.
Throughout the 20th century we saw growing wealth equality but during the last dozen years that process has gone into reverse.
Perhaps the most famous face of the Lawson boom was Harry Enfield's 'Loadsamoney', a plasterer.
And what was the stereotype of the economic migrant ? The 'Polish plumber'.
Economic migration has effectively blocked a route of wealth transfer from the upper middle class to the working class.
Home ownership is falling, real wage increases have ended and the route to prosperity is no longer through work but through ownership. And as wealth ownership becomes increasingly concentrated this process will likely accelerate.
Likewise while the 20th century saw political power increasingly transferred to people of lower middle class background that process has now also reversed culminating in the present political leaderships.
Privilege has replaced aspiration.
Very good for the people at the very top but it isn't for the 99% of us who benefit from a stable society.
The final table of results is:
https://user.nojam.com/pid/50/live/averagebygeparty.php
There are very big money-making options available there, but I'm still biding my time until after the Euros.
Even on a betting site we all know that our team is right really and it is inevitable that more people will come to think the way we do!
1. Were they obviously marginal last time? People were assuming a big swing to the Tories and a large part of the rather successful LD campaign in my patch was "Labour has lost but we can stop the Tories".
2. How large is the LD vote? If it's very large they could in theory pull the same sort of trick (Labour's target of Cambridge is the obvious example since we're actually 3rd); if it's very small there's not much to squeeze.
3. What are the demographics of the Labour vote? Socially divided seats where most of the Labour vote is deep working-class are more vulnerable to UKIP inroads on Labour than places like Hampstead.
This of course assumes broadly similar national polls!
The UK leadership has traditionally been very supportive on an open economy - it goes back to the days when we were global economic leaders and free trade was entirely rational, but it has remained a totemic principle (and I think it is right to do so - free trade makes the world richer).
What the country is struggling with is the impact of globalisation. Originally this was seen in cheaper goods, but increasingly it impacted first metal-bashing jobs, then increasingly skilled manufacturing and now - slowly but surely - services are being competed against. I don't see this as a permanent trend because low wage countries tend to become less cost competitive over time, but it is a traumatic process of rebalancing, and especially for people who has fewer transferable skills.
The "rich get richer" is simply a consequence of asset price inflation. On one level this is just a factor of vast wealth looking for a home in a low yield environment (+ an element of QE). More fundamentally, this is a factor of the natural attractiveness of the UK as a safe place to store wealth. Of course, on one level, this benefits people who own assets in the UK but it also has costs (for instance - not expecting any sympathy - no one my age can afford a house in Kensington anymore, whereas even 15 years ago it was the norm).
What we are seeing is a transition from a national elite to a global elite that is, in many case, divorced from their country of origin.
Will Ed join Neil Kinnock as the only Leader of the Opposition not to win the Euros that was held in a non General Election year?
Mr. Hopkins, cheers for setting up the competition. Seems that only Lib Dem supporters think Labour will beat UKIP (going by average), and all groups think, collectively, the Conservatives will come third.
The boundaries of all of these issues are a matter of legitimate debate and I for one would want them drawn differently from where they are now but the extreme Eurosceptic simply does not have a balanced view of these matters.
In my opinion of course! Feel free to continue disagreeing!
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Next_United_Kingdom_general_election#Likely_or_potential_target_seats
There are several sources of "target seats" so you pick your donkey and jump on for the ride.
Does ComRes therefore suggest a Labour lead on votes but a Tory lead on seats?
On the Euros as an indicator of Miliband as electoral kryptonite: I'm not so sure we should read much into either way. Unless Labour win by miles or collapse utterly I don't think it'll be all that much use. Most people don't care, don't bother to vote and the system means those who do can quite easily vote for a smaller party without worrying about it.
Basically the Tories' options for dealing with UKIP are:
1) Ignore / character-assassinate them and hope this whole multi-party fad blows over.
2) Try to stretch the tent wide enough by being mostly centre-right in practice but throwing scraps of red meat to the right occasionally, and hoping they can squeeze them in FPTP elections.
3) Be the centre-right party in a PR system, take 30%-35% to UKIP's 15%, be the largest party in various coalitions (Con-UKIP, Con-Other, Con-Lab).
You are spot on regarding the effects of globalisation and it is starting to hit some services hard.
This effect has to be coupled with the relative decline of the UK's education standards (and skill sets) whilst those of our competitors are rising and the fact that we have paid ourselves too much over the last half-century.
Also as economic renewable energy is not yet available on tap, the newer sources of energy (excepting USA) are too be found in Asia and Africa and in the shorter term we have to accept their selling price.
TSE/OGH can we have a thread later today predicting the locals and gains/losses for parties of council seats. A few weeks ago it was Labour to win 500, Tories to lose 200-300 and LibDems to lose 300. So what do people think now?
It is someone who tries to pretend we can be 'in Europe not run by Europe' or that we can have any meaningful renegotiation of our terms of membership that will satisfy the large majority of the British public who are unhappy with the current relationship.
In short the Europhiles in the Tory party are fundamentally dishonest.
http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/timstanley/100272357/whatever-the-voters-now-think-of-ukip-they-despise-the-establishment-even-more/
What's even better is it's comments thread. CCHQ should have a read. Accords closely with the sort of sentiment DavidL was espousing here at PB. Dave has a clear majority in his grasp if he pays attention and respect to the moderate, small c conservatism of middle England.
Piers Wauchope has written a good history of Camden Council, which shows this in microcosm. When the council was formed, in 1964, it comprised two boroughs. St. Pancras and Hampstead. Both had left-wing Labour parties. At the outset, St. Pancras was dominant, with Labour campaigns centred on jobs and housing. By the eighties, Hampstead was dominant, with Labour campaigns centred on feminism, gay rights, unilateral disarmament etc.
Cons: 15; LAB:27; LD: 39; UKIP:9; Green:7. If this was continued then it would show that more of the LD to LAB switch is returning.
For this year and using monthly averages, the LD to LAB support has dropped by about 4 points but the LD retention has dropped by about 1.5 points. The extra VI has gone to the Cons (2 pts) and UKIP and Green, (1.5 each)
In response to your inquiry about Newark on the previous thread, this is a copy of what I posted a couple of days ago.
"Suprisingly low key at the moment. I have been in Newark most days this week and apart from the two offices for UKIP and the Conservatives on opposite sides of the market square the only real sign of campaigning has been the "Stop Commercial Banks Owning Britain's Money" candidate Dick Rogers who has been out there gamely every day with a big poster board on his pack campaigning for a fairer Britain. No idea what he actually means by that but he is a terribly friendly and engaging bloke who kind of reminds me of one of those street conversion Christians you sometimes get reading passages from the bible.
The UKIP office and Conservative office both seem busy and there is no sign of any aggro at the moment - the stuff being reported in the news tonight actually took place in Retford not Newark so I assume was part of the Euro campaign rather than the By election as Retford is no longer in the constituency. Never trust the media to get anything right :-)
I still contend this is a shoe in for Jenrick as I don't think Newark has the right demographics for UKIP and I again think that is a shame because Jenrick strikes me as a party placeman rather than the independent sort of MP I would like to see in the town.
I have seen no signs yet that would indicate to me we are heading for any sort of upset.
The Lib Dems don't seem to be taking the whole thing seriously at all - they only got their candidate sorted out last week.
If I was going to make a prediction it would be Tory hold with much reduced majority, UKIP then Labour with the Lib Dems very lucky to save their deposit and probably in 5th or 6th."
Whatever the outcome of the Indyref, there's going to be a major constitutional upheaval for the UK, and the era of asymmetrical devolution is over.
So yes, I have a thread the features the Indyref and electoral reform.
You can all thank me now.
Thanks.
But there are other seats that will also determine the outcome ofe the next election.
We are not going to agree about this are we?
Politicians will either ignore the West Lothian Question or, worse, try to carve England up into pathetic little regional assemblies.