Who is laying UKIP Most Votes at Betfair at 1.3 ? Is it still possible that LAB could come out top on Sunday?
My own suspicion is this, in a lot of the country, both the locals and European election ballot papers went into the same ballot box.
Overnight, when the papers were being separated, some people have made a guesstimate on the actual result as they glanced as the European ballot papers.
On that point, counting agents everywhere will have verified the Euro voting papers last night, a process which enables the sharp-eyed to assess how it's going in each ward. But I think the Betfair movements may just as well be semi-random, as people cover earlier positions.
Overall, UKIP clearly rampant outside the big cities and Labour losing the early spin war, though the London, Bristol and Cambridge results should adjust that. We can debate individual results to death but the elephant in the room is clearly UKIP's substantial impact: nobody seriously knows what will happen next with that. If a Tory marginal shows UKIP 1 Lab 2 Con 3, or a Lab marginal shows UKIP 1 Con 2 Lab 3, what do we guess for 2015? Because of the strong regional and class differential it could produce some very varying constituency results - e.g. Labour's 3rd-placed Daniel Zeichner in Cambridge must be feeling cheerful this morning.
Ben Page Ipsos: Labour will be disappointed outside London #localelections but more NOC councils in South remind Tories of UKIP vote splitting power
Paul Waugh; Outgoing Tory leader of Croydon: Tory switchers to UKIP let Lab in. "The annoying thing here is that UKIP have lots of votes but no seats"
Laura Kuenssberg: Point about labour is precedent suggests they shd be taking 300-500 seats this stage in cycle -that's why Alexander has to 'defend' campaign
Brogan; Quite a good result for Tories: #vote2014 story so far is not about them - Labour in deep trouble; Ukip surge; LDs hit; Tories? Meh!
Tory leader Mike Fisher tells @croydonad: "Labour hasn't won Croydon, the Ukip vote has denied us control"
"There is no presence of American infidels in the city of Baghdad at all.".
Miliband's PR team is crap, endless shots of him drinking tea from poorly lit photos on Twitter, photostunts falling apart time and time again, make me wonder if Labour have little or no faith in the guy. It is as if nothing has been remembered from the Blair years.
Miliband's PR team is crap, endless shots of him drinking tea from poorly lit photos on Twitter, photostunts falling apart time and time again, make me wonder if Labour have little or no faith in the guy.
Labour never had faith in him. Didn't want him, didn't vote for him.
One would hope so. It would be a disastrous result for the country. Labour would have power, but not legitimacy - a very dangerous combination.
How would it be any less legitimate than the Tory victories after the SDP split?
It wouldn’t, but that was then.We’ve had more discussion of “better/alternative” systems since then. Furthermore the Mail and Telegraph’s favourite party ..... or should that be parties now ...... would be left holding the mucky end of the stick!
The Tories aren't going to change their support of FPTP and Labour obviously aren't going to buy into the Tories' self-interested attempts to change the border rules.
The only way to solve the status quo is if Conservatives back away from FPTP but that would probably require several successive electoral losses.
One good thing about traditional Tories; they’re pragmatic. If it looks like a good idea they’ll adopt it. And as I said, the Tory Press wouldn’t necessarily take the same view as the Party itself, which in any case isn’t united in favour of FPTP, although the website CAER used to have seems to have vanished.
The party can easily change its view with a new leader, as long as he wasn't previously vocal about FPTP. The Tory Press will be perfectly happy to change its mind.
@patrickwintour: Number 10 citing Curtice. "Labour are doing less well than they did two years ago. In other words: Labour are actually going backwards".
Meanwhile, its 'business as usual' in Scotland (I'd missed that Salmond blithely assumes that rUK tax payers will carry on funding Scottish University research post-separation):
Dream on
That you won't obey EU law on Uni fees, or rUK will fund foreign universities?
Yawn, I thought yesterday we were not going to be in the EU, make up your minds.
Well, we'll never know will we because the SNP MSPs have suppressed the minority report critical of the SNP government......
......welcome to the Brave New Scotland.....
7 years now and Labour still cannot accept that they are not running Scotland and people like you sit down south and lap up manure from the Torygraph. It is bullshit , you should stop consuming it.
So you support the suppression of a minority report critical of the SNP government, but piss & moan when one of very many opinion polls is not published?
Welcome to the Brave New SNPland.....
Your hysteria is touching, the torygraph says they are scared to speak out in case they lose their free money , even if it is just in their heads as the government have not threatened them. The torygraph then details the petty crap they are peddling in their supposed " suppressed report ". The only suppression is in their petty heads and the imagination of a sad hack at the torygraph. The supposed academics are bricking it in case their golden lifestyle is disturbed, they pause to look up from the public trough to whinge that change may mean they get less spoils. Thick Tories count that as suppression , so they did not voice their opinions as they were supposedly scared and then blurt it to newspaper and this is supposed to be SNP suppressing a report that does not exist. Some trougher being scared to give their opinion is hardly suppression except in the tortured mind of Tories. Do you ever read the crap you post, welcome to lying thieving pompous condescending TORYland.
Combine a four party system with FPTP and 32%/33% of vote could well produce an overall Commons majority for Labour. That's ridiculous.
It is ridiculous in my view, but it is also consistent with the stated advantage of FPTP delivering majority one-party government.
If avoiding eternal coalition government, and creating decisive electoral outcomes, is more important to people than having the Commons more accurately reflect the diversity of public opinion, then such a result only confirms that judgement, rather than challenges it.
It's also worth remembering one of the few things that all three parties agreed on before the next election - the desirability of introducing a recall mechanism for MPs - has not occurred. Pondering why that has likely been the case, and the parallels with the effect on MPs careers from introducing any form of PR, and it is clear that any sort of perverse election result will not result in reform.
The only thing that might encourage reform would be the situation where an incumbent government saw PR as the only way of saving themselves from electoral oblivion under FPTP.
So a horrible night for Labour (with some decent news in London), an average one for the Tories (with bad news in London), poor night for the Lib Dems and what looks like a real turning point for UKIP.
The Tories need to go back to HQ today and take a look at what they need to do to win in London. H+F have done a fucking brilliant job and Labour have done a pretty poor job in Enfield, losing ground in both seats is not where they want to be. They need London specific policy of the same kind that gets Boris elected. I would look at a higher minimum wage in London to reflect the higher cost of living as a priority. I would also look at publicly financed house/flat building across the capital. When I worked for Sony the number one issue was getting on the housing ladder, and believe me it is very tough to make it happen on less than £45k gross regardless of the kind of deposit one might have saved. It took me three promotions and major pay rises before I could afford a decent place in zone 2. It should not be the preserve of senior level and board level management to afford flats and houses in zone 2 (and soon 3).
There does need to be some level of government intervention on the supply side to get flats built between the £200-250k range in and around zone 2, and slightly lower in zone 3. People talk about gentrification in certain areas to drive the Con vote, but a lot of these people are not owner occupiers, they are renters and they hold a grudge against the government because they have been priced out of ownership in desirable areas. Until the Torie are on the side of working people in London who want to own a flat (HtB does nothing when the flat costs £450k and wages are £40k) and not on the side of rich oligarchs and the people selling up in zone 1 at inflated prices and spraying their funny money in areas like H+F driving up house prices to levels which young professionals who should be natural Con voters can't afford.
As for UKIP, allying themselves with the Cons seems like a one way ticket to becoming a southern party again. Farage and the party machine should resist any calls to enter any kind of alliance with the Tories. The furthest he should go is to say where UKIP may end up unseating a Eurosceptic or BOO Tory, take the campaigning easy to ensure they don't split the vote to allow a Europhile Labour MP in (the same, of course goes for any Eurosceptic/BOO Labour MP).
Labour can't win until they get rid of their trendy metropolitan leader. They have done well in London, but at the expense of what should be their core WWC vote. Labour are lucky there weren't more local elections in the North.
Interesting , so Lennon must be going elsewhere then. Doubt it will be Spurs but cannot see him wanting to go to Brighton. Any other open positions in higher English leagues.
West Brom seems logical. I was expecting a managerial merry go round, expecting Sam Allardyce to be sacked, but West Ham have told him he's staying.
But I was expecting Malky Mackay to get either the Norwich or West Ham jobs, so it'll be a fight between those two when any other job comes up?
Maybe Southampton if their boss goes to Spurs?
Possibly, Malky McKay will be in for Celtic job , probably between him and Owen Coyle unless there is a mystery top guy who would take it.
I said on this forum that London was moving even more Labour, in part in reaction to the Kipper surge elsewhere. Looking like a good night down here for the red team.
Right. They don't do well among British born people, but they cater very well to immigrants. Hence they have done very well in the most foreign part of the UK. It's why they want to continue mass migration so that the rest of the country is remade like London.
Mr. PB, H+F? [MaxPB, to clarify, just seen another chap with the same 'surname'].
Saw a clip of Farage speaking this morning where he basically ruled out a pact with the Conservatives. He also said he'd throw the kitchen sink at targeted seats in the General Election (common sense, at last?) which may well mean an unofficial policy of not wasting resources in other areas, perhaps most notably the most sceptical MPs.
F1: had a quick look at Ladbrokes' markets. Nothing jumps out at this stage. I'll wait until P3's concluded but I suspect I won't be offering a qualifying tip.
It may have escaped your notice, but there are other issues than Europe. The LDs stand for a fairer society, with government social support backed by sound finances. This was New Labours appeal, as was Dave Camerons., but both are in danger of abandoning the centre. The LDs policy on Europe is to change the EU from within, which is a policy supported by up to 80% of those polled, so not an extreme position.
@MrSox - The LibDems will be the sole sane centrist party after the 2015 cull.
Define 'centrist' - surely they will remain a pro EU extremist party?
"Change from within". And what changes from within are the Lib Dems pushing for? An end to agricultural subsidies? Limits to mass immigration? More controls on corruption? Freedom to set our own trade deals? I haven't heard a single one of them. The Lib Dems just speak about nebulous concepts like "change from within", "open to the world", "more clout" etc but they don't actually mean anything in practice.
I said on this forum that London was moving even more Labour, in part in reaction to the Kipper surge elsewhere. Looking like a good night down here for the red team.
Right. They don't do well among British born people, but they cater very well to immigrants. Hence they have done very well in the most foreign part of the UK. It's why they want to continue mass migration so that the rest of the country is remade like London.
You are like a broken record, obsessed with immigration. Do you think the affluent middle class Labour vote in London is largely foreign born?
Meanwhile, its 'business as usual' in Scotland (I'd missed that Salmond blithely assumes that rUK tax payers will carry on funding Scottish University research post-separation):
Dream on
That you won't obey EU law on Uni fees, or rUK will fund foreign universities?
Yawn, I thought yesterday we were not going to be in the EU, make up your minds.
Well, we'll never know will we because the SNP MSPs have suppressed the minority report critical of the SNP government......
......welcome to the Brave New Scotland.....
7 years now and Labour still cannot accept that they are not running Scotland and people like you sit down south and lap up manure from the Torygraph. It is bullshit , you should stop consuming it.
So you support the suppression of a minority report critical of the SNP government, but piss & moan when one of very many opinion polls is not published?
Welcome to the Brave New SNPland.....
Your hysteria is touching, the torygraph says they are scared to speak out in case they lose their free money , even if it is just in their heads as the government have not threatened them. The torygraph then details the petty crap they are peddling in their supposed " suppressed report ". The only suppression is in their petty heads and the imagination of a sad hack at the torygraph. The supposed academics are bricking it in case their golden lifestyle is disturbed, they pause to look up from the public trough to whinge that change may mean they get less spoils. Thick Tories count that as suppression , so they did not voice their opinions as they were supposedly scared and then blurt it to newspaper and this is supposed to be SNP suppressing a report that does not exist. Some trougher being scared to give their opinion is hardly suppression except in the tortured mind of Tories. Do you ever read the crap you post, welcome to lying thieving pompous condescending TORYland.
I know you easily get confused......but I was referring to the SNP MSPs rewriting a report critical of the SNP government's EU position, and suppressing the minority report pointing this out.....but we know you think the SNP and Scotland are synonymous...
They need London specific policy of the same kind that gets Boris elected.
I'd be careful about that. Any party announcing London specific policies will be very negatively received elsewhere in the country.
I think stuff specific to lower paid workers and housing costs would not be controversial, pretty much everyone in the country realises that London is not like the rest of the country and having the minimum wage set to £7.20 per hour and spending some government money to allow middle and lower income people onto the housing ladder in London is not going to be a big problem. Any talk of different tax rates or allowing London to keep some of its huge tax surplus would go too far. Specific help for middle and lower income people in London is uncontroversial.
Saw a clip of Farage speaking this morning where he basically ruled out a pact with the Conservatives. He also said he'd throw the kitchen sink at targeted seats in the General Election (common sense, at last?) which may well mean an unofficial policy of not wasting resources in other areas, perhaps most notably the most sceptical MPs.
Hammersmith and Fulham, Labour gain from Con last night, 11 seat turnaround. It should be a solid Tory power base and the council have done a lot of good work. The issue is that there are a lot of people that rent here and Ed's misguided rent freeze or whatever it was is attractive. I think that policy announcement is what saved Ed's bacon across London last night while in the rest of the country I very much doubt it made a difference.
So a horrible night for Labour (with some decent news in London), an average one for the Tories (with bad news in London), poor night for the Lib Dems and what looks like a real turning point for UKIP.
The Tories need to go back to HQ today and take a look at what they need to do to win in London. H+F have done a fucking brilliant job and Labour have done a pretty poor job in Enfield, losing ground in both seats is not where they want to be. They need London specific policy of the same kind that gets Boris elected. I would look at a higher minimum wage in London to reflect the higher cost of living as a priority. I would also look at publicly financed house/flat building across the capital. When I worked for Sony the number one issue was getting on the housing ladder, and believe me it is very tough to make it happen on less than £45k gross regardless of the kind of deposit one might have saved. It took me three promotions and major pay rises before I could afford a decent place in zone 2. It should not be the preserve of senior level and board level management to afford flats and houses in zone 2 (and soon 3).
There does need to be some level of government intervention on the supply side to get flats built between the £200-250k range in and around zone 2, and slightly lower in zone 3. People talk about gentrification in certain areas to drive the Con vote, but a lot of these people are not owner occupiers, they are renters and they hold a grudge against the government because they have been priced out of ownership in desirable areas. Until the Torie are on the side of working people in London who want to own a flat (HtB does nothing when the flat costs £450k and wages are £40k) and not on the side of rich oligarchs and the people selling up in zone 1 at inflated prices and spraying their funny money in areas like H+F driving up house prices to levels which young professionals who should be natural Con voters can't afford.
[snipped for space]
On working and (perhaps) living in London, this may be of some interest - Steer Davies Gleave (a transport consultancy) have crunched the ATOC database to give a combined housing + train commuting cost map for London. This is reported in the Modern Railways issue which has just arrived, but this seems to give the gist of it:
Congratulations to UKIP for their success in the locals.Enjoy your weekend of triumph in the Euros.But the road ahead to general election success looks exceedingly difficult.Yes seat gains have come from all the main parties.But in no council do UKIP have a majority of votes and certainly not seats.The Lib Dems took a long tome tp get MPs in numbers the starting point being local council control.And UKIP have just a year to do that.The problem is the glass ceiling of FPTP- a mid teens share is the best that can be expected in a years time at the GEand that is unlikely to produce seats.
So UKIP are ding very well in the loclas with lots more gains to come total gains( c200 total)?. what about Labour.Two factors at work the UKIP protest surge has reduced the swing from Con to Labour.The swing has also been because Labour in 2010 had the benefittof higher turnout for Labour voters at locals because it coincide with the GE.So at best a patchy performance of seat and council gains.
for the Conservatives a larger loss of council control than expected primarily due to UKIP intervention.The problem is that a mid teens poll rating at the GE for UKIP could do damage to Con chances in marginals.
And finally the Lib dems.looking like losses of c300l seats two councils already lost-Cambridge and Pwith maybe Kingston and Three rivers to follow.Evidence of doing best in areas where strong patchy yes in Eastleigh and Colchester but no in Cambridge and maybe Kingston. The way ahead can only be intense hold.focus of all resources on the 57 seats they currently hold.
Mr. Socrates, Machiavelli (in Discourses, I think) wrote that a confederation can only function really for 4-6 states at the most. Beyond that the influence of each nation is so diluted that they always receive less of what they want and more of what they don't. It also leads, as we've seen with the EU, to the confederation itself accruing power at the expense of states.
I've said for a while that Clegg was a patriot but he thinks his country's the EU, and his recent utterances on it being (in his words) unpatriotic and chauvinistic to be against the EU rather support that.
The EU is not only a bad thing, it's inherently unworkable. As a trade organisation it could work, but the sovereign debt crisis has shown the folly of attempting to put a dozen or more countries into a monetary straitjacket, and the response of the eurozone to try and increase integration will only make the pain of the next crash worse and the process of disentangling the nation-states from the tentacles of the euro even more difficult.
Hmmmmmm, I awake less triumphalist than last night. I'd review my Con performance down to 'quite poor', the Lib Dems to 'poor' and Labour up from disastrous to 'pretty poor'. London is Daves big problem for 2015, I can't see any way he gets a majority, but I'd now have him marginal favourite to remain PM. UKIP have done very very well! Sky have them taking Castle Point (that's on the back of the Indy in 2010), and I am certain they will win the Euros. My feeling is their vote will be much stickier this time, but I think it's the WWC who will stick hardest, I'd add 3 to the Tory score and one to Labour and take 4 from UKIP in polling and there's your GE projection. Positive for Labour - Hammersmith, Redbridge Positive for Lib Dems - Sutton and Eastleigh Positive for Tories - Kingston, Swindon, Tamworth etc
Mr Eagles, that's the thing about locals. So many results any party can point to something and say it's good news.
I remember many Labour folk telling me, even when Boris won, that London was a Labour city, so Labour are only doing well, where they are already strong.
I don't think it's been said yet, but for me one of the things the London results confirm is that Boris will not attempt to seek re-election as mayor and will head back to Westminster.
I was thinking that too, and wondering if it means he can stand as a London MP in 2015 without any problems further down the line.
He only won last time because Labour had a dire candidate in Ken. If Khan runs, he wins, IMO.
Congratulations to UKIP for their success in the locals.Enjoy your weekend of triumph in the Euros.But the road ahead to general election success looks exceedingly difficult.Yes seat gains have come from all the main parties.But in no council do UKIP have a majority of votes and certainly not seats.The Lib Dems took a long tome tp get MPs in numbers the starting point being local council control.And UKIP have just a year to do that.The problem is the glass ceiling of FPTP- a mid teens share is the best that can be expected in a years time at the GEand that is unlikely to produce seats.
So UKIP are ding very well in the loclas with lots more gains to come total gains( c200 total)?. what about Labour.Two factors at work the UKIP protest surge has reduced the swing from Con to Labour.The swing has also been because Labour in 2010 had the benefittof higher turnout for Labour voters at locals because it coincide with the GE.So at best a patchy performance of seat and council gains.
for the Conservatives a larger loss of council control than expected primarily due to UKIP intervention.The problem is that a mid teens poll rating at the GE for UKIP could do damage to Con chances in marginals.
And finally the Lib dems.looking like losses of c300l seats two councils already lost-Cambridge and Pwith maybe Kingston and Three rivers to follow.Evidence of doing best in areas where strong patchy yes in Eastleigh and Colchester but no in Cambridge and maybe Kingston. The way ahead can only be intense hold.focus of all resources on the 57 seats they currently hold.
Cambridge was not a LD loss as it was NOC before yesterday . Labour now have overall control .
Yet the Standard said last night that, if Labour wins Hammersmith back, Ed can measure up the curtains to No. 10. I wonder if they will reference that forecast later?
Congratulations to UKIP for their success in the locals.Enjoy your weekend of triumph in the Euros.But the road ahead to general election success looks exceedingly difficult.Yes seat gains have come from all the main parties.But in no council do UKIP have a majority of votes and certainly not seats.The Lib Dems took a long tome tp get MPs in numbers the starting point being local council control.And UKIP have just a year to do that.The problem is the glass ceiling of FPTP- a mid teens share is the best that can be expected in a years time at the GEand that is unlikely to produce seats.
So UKIP are ding very well in the loclas with lots more gains to come total gains( c200 total)?. what about Labour.Two factors at work the UKIP protest surge has reduced the swing from Con to Labour.The swing has also been because Labour in 2010 had the benefittof higher turnout for Labour voters at locals because it coincide with the GE.So at best a patchy performance of seat and council gains.
for the Conservatives a larger loss of council control than expected primarily due to UKIP intervention.The problem is that a mid teens poll rating at the GE for UKIP could do damage to Con chances in marginals.
And finally the Lib dems.looking like losses of c300l seats two councils already lost-Cambridge and Pwith maybe Kingston and Three rivers to follow.Evidence of doing best in areas where strong patchy yes in Eastleigh and Colchester but no in Cambridge and maybe Kingston. The way ahead can only be intense hold.focus of all resources on the 57 seats they currently hold.
UKIP got quite close in Rotherham with 44.26% of votes cast.
I find it funny that the constant accusations of left-wing bias has caused the BBC to counter-adjust and go ridiculously OTT in their coverage of UKIP. I doubt that's what the moaners wanted!
Mr Eagles, that's the thing about locals. So many results any party can point to something and say it's good news.
I remember many Labour folk telling me, even when Boris won, that London was a Labour city, so Labour are only doing well, where they are already strong.
I don't think it's been said yet, but for me one of the things the London results confirm is that Boris will not attempt to seek re-election as mayor and will head back to Westminster.
I was thinking that too, and wondering if it means he can stand as a London MP in 2015 without any problems further down the line.
He only won last time because Labour had a dire candidate in Ken. If Khan runs, he wins, IMO.
I said on this forum that London was moving even more Labour, in part in reaction to the Kipper surge elsewhere. Looking like a good night down here for the red team.
Right. They don't do well among British born people, but they cater very well to immigrants. Hence they have done very well in the most foreign part of the UK. It's why they want to continue mass migration so that the rest of the country is remade like London.
You are like a broken record, obsessed with immigration. Do you think the affluent middle class Labour vote in London is largely foreign born?
No, but I don't think the Labour affluent middle class vote is enough to win elections. They need large majorities among the poor ethnic minorities to do that. Wealthy places like West Hampstead and Queen's Park tend to lean conservative.
I'm sorry if you feel it's a broken record, but different voting patterns by ethnic group are a key explanatory factor. You might not like the conclusions people form from that, but it's the case. I suspect that white British voters in London voted pretty similarly to the rest of the country.
They need London specific policy of the same kind that gets Boris elected.
I'd be careful about that. Any party announcing London specific policies will be very negatively received elsewhere in the country.
I think stuff specific to lower paid workers and housing costs would not be controversial, pretty much everyone in the country realises that London is not like the rest of the country and having the minimum wage set to £7.20 per hour and spending some government money to allow middle and lower income people onto the housing ladder in London is not going to be a big problem. Any talk of different tax rates or allowing London to keep some of its huge tax surplus would go too far. Specific help for middle and lower income people in London is uncontroversial..
How would you prevent such a policy from being portrayed thus: London has too much money sloshing around to deal with its own workers decently, so the rest of the UK has to pump even more money into it? Surely not likely to go down well.
But how many got the timing just right? Very, very few I suspect. Not that many will fess up.
Can't speak for anyone else, but I backed Con Most seats at 15.0 and 11.5, and laid off at 9.15. On Con Most Votes I backed at 21.0 plus a small bet with Sky at 26.0, and laid off at 7.8.
Admittedly I didn't get the best possible timing, but that wasn't too bad. I then lumped on UKIP Most Seats at 1.87.
They need London specific policy of the same kind that gets Boris elected.
I'd be careful about that. Any party announcing London specific policies will be very negatively received elsewhere in the country.
I think stuff specific to lower paid workers and housing costs would not be controversial, pretty much everyone in the country realises that London is not like the rest of the country and having the minimum wage set to £7.20 per hour and spending some government money to allow middle and lower income people onto the housing ladder in London is not going to be a big problem. Any talk of different tax rates or allowing London to keep some of its huge tax surplus would go too far. Specific help for middle and lower income people in London is uncontroversial.
Saw a clip of Farage speaking this morning where he basically ruled out a pact with the Conservatives. He also said he'd throw the kitchen sink at targeted seats in the General Election (common sense, at last?) which may well mean an unofficial policy of not wasting resources in other areas, perhaps most notably the most sceptical MPs.
Hammersmith and Fulham, Labour gain from Con last night, 11 seat turnaround. It should be a solid Tory power base and the council have done a lot of good work. The issue is that there are a lot of people that rent here and Ed's misguided rent freeze or whatever it was is attractive. I think that policy announcement is what saved Ed's bacon across London last night while in the rest of the country I very much doubt it made a difference.
H&F is a strange borough, rich in the south and relatively poor in the north. Lots of high density local authority housing mixed in with uber-rich and increasingly foreign home owners. Less the educated working man, more the poorly educated, unemployed motivated to vote by the benefits tap being turned off?
Laura Kuenssberg: Point about labour is precedent suggests they shd be taking 300-500 seats this stage in cycle -that's why Alexander has to 'defend' campaign.
Will Rallings and Thrasher local elections forecasts for LAB to make 490 gains likely to be achieved - or even surpassed…?
Lab 7,730 (40.02%) Con 5,297 (27.43%) UKIP 4,520 (23.40%) LD 907 (4.70%) Green 467 (2.42%) TUSC 353 (1.83%) Ind 40 (0.21%)
Changes since 2010 locals:
Lab +3.97% Con -6.57% UKIP +18.68% LD -18.37% Green +2.42%
Swing, Con to Lab: 5.27%
Labour vote holding up in towns and cities?
I can't see the tories winning without more support in towns and cities, but I also can't see labour getting a workable majority without more support outside them...
Prediction: Labour highest party, just short of majority... but a weak government.
Lab 7,730 (40.02%) Con 5,297 (27.43%) UKIP 4,520 (23.40%) LD 907 (4.70%) Green 467 (2.42%) TUSC 353 (1.83%) Ind 40 (0.21%)
Changes since 2010 locals:
Lab +3.97% Con -6.57% UKIP +18.68% LD -18.37% Green +2.42%
Swing, Con to Lab: 5.27%
Labour vote holding up in towns and cities?
I can't see the tories winning without more support in towns and cities, but I also can't see labour getting a workable majority without more support outside them...
Prediction: Labour highest party, just short of majority... but a weak government.
Worcester woman stayed Tory, Lincoln Man went red. London is Eds saver, he's probably going to get 250 gains, masking a worse than needed performance. How many London seats can he gain though at a GE?
I've got it neck and neck in seats, Dave remains PM, one year programme, back to the polls. Scotland is now critical.
Congratulations to UKIP for their success in the locals.Enjoy your weekend of triumph in the Euros.But the road ahead to general election success looks exceedingly difficult.Yes seat gains have come from all the main parties.But in no council do UKIP have a majority of votes and certainly not seats.The Lib Dems took a long tome tp get MPs in numbers the starting point being local council control.And UKIP have just a year to do that.The problem is the glass ceiling of FPTP- a mid teens share is the best that can be expected in a years time at the GEand that is unlikely to produce seats.
So UKIP are ding very well in the loclas with lots more gains to come total gains( c200 total)?. what about Labour.Two factors at work the UKIP protest surge has reduced the swing from Con to Labour.The swing has also been because Labour in 2010 had the benefittof higher turnout for Labour voters at locals because it coincide with the GE.So at best a patchy performance of seat and council gains.
for the Conservatives a larger loss of council control than expected primarily due to UKIP intervention.The problem is that a mid teens poll rating at the GE for UKIP could do damage to Con chances in marginals.
And finally the Lib dems.looking like losses of c300l seats two councils already lost-Cambridge and Pwith maybe Kingston and Three rivers to follow.Evidence of doing best in areas where strong patchy yes in Eastleigh and Colchester but no in Cambridge and maybe Kingston. The way ahead can only be intense hold.focus of all resources on the 57 seats they currently hold.
Cambridge was not a LD loss as it was NOC before yesterday . Labour now have overall control .
Mr. Carnyx, I generally disagree with SNP types (or Yes types, at least) banging on about the evils of London, but I do think the housing market subsidy for London would go down about as well as rat poison.
There may be a case for regional minimum wages, though I'd need some convincing, but the rest of the country funnelling money towards London's property market would not go down well at all.
This sort of thing is just one more reason why Balkanising England by carving it up into shitty little regional assemblies would be despicable. London gets more funding per head than the rest of England, but it also contributes more than any other area to the Treasury.
So, at least one side (and possibly both) would be pissed off with the funding arrangements for the rubbish regional assemblies. Either poorer areas get less per head and feel like they're funding a wealthy city, or London feels like it's contributing almost everything and getting back far less than its fair share. (It's practically identical to the way it's possible to see Scotland either getting more than its fair share or more than paying its own way).
No doubt, the ethnically and culturally diverse profile helped Labour in London as the Tories still - to this day - remain largely toxic to ethnic minority voters.
Mr. Carnyx, I generally disagree with SNP types (or Yes types, at least) banging on about the evils of London, but I do think the housing market subsidy for London would go down about as well as rat poison.
There may be a case for regional minimum wages, though I'd need some convincing, but the rest of the country funnelling money towards London's property market would not go down well at all.
This sort of thing is just one more reason why Balkanising England by carving it up into shitty little regional assemblies would be despicable. London gets more funding per head than the rest of England, but it also contributes more than any other area to the Treasury.
So, at least one side (and possibly both) would be pissed off with the funding arrangements for the rubbish regional assemblies. Either poorer areas get less per head and feel like they're funding a wealthy city, or London feels like it's contributing almost everything and getting back far less than its fair share. (It's practically identical to the way it's possible to see Scotland either getting more than its fair share or more than paying its own way).
How does London build its global success and drive the economy when professionals can no longer afford to live there?
If you want to tackle the housing crisis in London, you need to deal with the fundamentals: increase supply and reduce demand. More house building and less immigration. Right now the latter is running so high the former wouldn't keep up even if you doubled it.
A bit of a straw man argument there. Does anyone actually believe the following is in anyway true?
"For centuries, the English have been taught that the late medieval Church was superstitious, corrupt, exploitative, and alien. Above all, we were told that King Henry VIII and the people of England despised its popish flummery and primitive rites. England was fed up to the back teeth with the ignorant mumbo-jumbo magicians of the foreign Church..."
Apparently Catholic England was a place of fun and jollity, and people getting happily pissed.
Lab 7,730 (40.02%) Con 5,297 (27.43%) UKIP 4,520 (23.40%) LD 907 (4.70%) Green 467 (2.42%) TUSC 353 (1.83%) Ind 40 (0.21%)
Changes since 2010 locals:
Lab +3.97% Con -6.57% UKIP +18.68% LD -18.37% Green +2.42%
Swing, Con to Lab: 5.27%
Labour vote holding up in towns and cities?
I can't see the tories winning without more support in towns and cities, but I also can't see labour getting a workable majority without more support outside them...
Prediction: Labour highest party, just short of majority... but a weak government.
Worcester woman stayed Tory, Lincoln Man went red. London is Eds saver, he's probably going to get 250 gains, masking a worse than needed performance. How many London seats can he gain though at a GE?
A politician trying to win seats elsewhere making an argument that people on £60k plus in London deserve taxpayer-funded housing subsidies would have a fun time.
I said on this forum that London was moving even more Labour, in part in reaction to the Kipper surge elsewhere. Looking like a good night down here for the red team.
Right. They don't do well among British born people, but they cater very well to immigrants. Hence they have done very well in the most foreign part of the UK. It's why they want to continue mass migration so that the rest of the country is remade like London.
You are like a broken record, obsessed with immigration. Do you think the affluent middle class Labour vote in London is largely foreign born?
No, but I don't think the Labour affluent middle class vote is enough to win elections. They need large majorities among the poor ethnic minorities to do that. Wealthy places like West Hampstead and Queen's Park tend to lean conservative.
I'm sorry if you feel it's a broken record, but different voting patterns by ethnic group are a key explanatory factor. You might not like the conclusions people form from that, but it's the case. I suspect that white British voters in London voted pretty similarly to the rest of the country.
So you have gone from "British-born" to "white British" in a heartbeat. Telling. Losing the argument again.
No doubt, the ethnically and culturally diverse profile helped Labour in London as the Tories still - to this day - remain largely toxic to ethnic minority voters.
That and the fact Labour promise ethnic minorities special advantages for getting into work, go easy on cases of child exploitation and voting fraud connected to ethnic minority areas, shame white-on-black racism but tolerate black-on-white racism, etc etc.
Mr Eagles, that's the thing about locals. So many results any party can point to something and say it's good news.
I remember many Labour folk telling me, even when Boris won, that London was a Labour city, so Labour are only doing well, where they are already strong.
I don't think it's been said yet, but for me one of the things the London results confirm is that Boris will not attempt to seek re-election as mayor and will head back to Westminster.
I was thinking that too, and wondering if it means he can stand as a London MP in 2015 without any problems further down the line.
He only won last time because Labour had a dire candidate in Ken. If Khan runs, he wins, IMO.
Mr Eagles, that's the thing about locals. So many results any party can point to something and say it's good news.
I remember many Labour folk telling me, even when Boris won, that London was a Labour city, so Labour are only doing well, where they are already strong.
I don't think it's been said yet, but for me one of the things the London results confirm is that Boris will not attempt to seek re-election as mayor and will head back to Westminster.
I was thinking that too, and wondering if it means he can stand as a London MP in 2015 without any problems further down the line.
He only won last time because Labour had a dire candidate in Ken. If Khan runs, he wins, IMO.
A bit of a straw man argument there. Does anyone actually believe the following is in anyway true?
"For centuries, the English have been taught that the late medieval Church was superstitious, corrupt, exploitative, and alien. Above all, we were told that King Henry VIII and the people of England despised its popish flummery and primitive rites. England was fed up to the back teeth with the ignorant mumbo-jumbo magicians of the foreign Church..."
Apparently Catholic England was a place of fun and jollity, and people getting happily pissed.
Henry VIII was by some margin, the nastiest King that England ever had.
They need London specific policy of the same kind that gets Boris elected.
I'd be careful about that. Any party announcing London specific policies will be very negatively received elsewhere in the country.
I think stuff specific to lower paid workers and housing costs would not be controversial, pretty much everyone in the country realises that London is not like the rest of the country and having the minimum wage set to £7.20 per hour and spending some government money to allow middle and lower income people onto the housing ladder in London is not going to be a big problem. Any talk of different tax rates or allowing London to keep some of its huge tax surplus would go too far. Specific help for middle and lower income people in London is uncontroversial..
How would you prevent such a policy from being portrayed thus: London has too much money sloshing around to deal with its own workers decently, so the rest of the UK has to pump even more money into it? Surely not likely to go down well.
The housing policy would be a tougher sell, but the minimum wage I don't see any issues. It would be paid for by businesses, not the taxpayer. As for housing, there is a specific issue of supply shortages, the only way to resolve it would be to increase supply drastically (20-25k flats per year in London) in the £200-250k range and limit the ownership to people earning under £44k per year (basic rate tax payers) and have them hold onto said flats as owner occupiers for at least 5 or 7 years. Do it on a non-profit basis and then call it a day.
H&F is a strange borough, rich in the south and relatively poor in the north. Lots of high density local authority housing mixed in with uber-rich and increasingly foreign home owners. Less the educated working man, more the poorly educated, unemployed motivated to vote by the benefits tap being turned off?
Well even the poorer areas are becoming gentrified, but with generation rent leading the charge. I think that is the key issue for the Cons in London. HtB is being trumpeted as the way for people onto the housing ladder, but it means basically nothing for basic rate earners. Flats in H+F start at £280k for a one bed conversion, that's 6x lending for a single person earning at the top range of the basic rate with a HtB mortgage. It is not within the realm of possibility for the million middle income young professionals in London to own their own flat and the government are not helping.
Lab 7,730 (40.02%) Con 5,297 (27.43%) UKIP 4,520 (23.40%) LD 907 (4.70%) Green 467 (2.42%) TUSC 353 (1.83%) Ind 40 (0.21%)
Changes since 2010 locals:
Lab +3.97% Con -6.57% UKIP +18.68% LD -18.37% Green +2.42%
Swing, Con to Lab: 5.27%
Labour vote holding up in towns and cities?
I can't see the tories winning without more support in towns and cities, but I also can't see labour getting a workable majority without more support outside them...
Prediction: Labour highest party, just short of majority... but a weak government.
That's exactly the Sky News prediction based on the National Equivalent Vote Shares, and it is what I've been expecting for some time.
However, there is still one year to go, so if there's another nudge in the electoral arithmetic away from Miliband he fails to become PM.
A bit of a straw man argument there. Does anyone actually believe the following is in anyway true?
"For centuries, the English have been taught that the late medieval Church was superstitious, corrupt, exploitative, and alien. Above all, we were told that King Henry VIII and the people of England despised its popish flummery and primitive rites. England was fed up to the back teeth with the ignorant mumbo-jumbo magicians of the foreign Church..."
Apparently Catholic England was a place of fun and jollity, and people getting happily pissed.
Actually, for centuries the English have been taught that Henry VIII wanted a divorce but the Pope wouldn't let him. That is probably as much as was taught in schools. Since the next lesson would have covered the swings between religions with priest-holes, martyrs and the gunpowder plot, I doubt anyone could have thought the populace had a settled view one way or the other, or that anyone in power would have listened.
I said on this forum that London was moving even more Labour, in part in reaction to the Kipper surge elsewhere. Looking like a good night down here for the red team.
Right. They don't do well among British born people, but they cater very well to immigrants. Hence they have done very well in the most foreign part of the UK. It's why they want to continue mass migration so that the rest of the country is remade like London.
You are like a broken record, obsessed with immigration. Do you think the affluent middle class Labour vote in London is largely foreign born?
No, but I don't think the Labour affluent middle class vote is enough to win elections. They need large majorities among the poor ethnic minorities to do that. Wealthy places like West Hampstead and Queen's Park tend to lean conservative.
I'm sorry if you feel it's a broken record, but different voting patterns by ethnic group are a key explanatory factor. You might not like the conclusions people form from that, but it's the case. I suspect that white British voters in London voted pretty similarly to the rest of the country.
So you have gone from "British-born" to "white British" in a heartbeat. Telling. Losing the argument again.
I'm merely basing my views on the available evidence. If there was data available on voting pattern by place of birth, I would have used that. But apparently the lack of data there makes me a racist.
Of course, it's a classic Labour tactic to play the racist card when you've lost the argument. You couldn't even respond to my individual arguments. No wonder, when the last government's political legacy was reckless wars in foreign policy, boom and an almighty bust in economic policy, and mass immigration and an authoritarian state in domestic policy. The only way you can gain in the polls is to play divide and rule with ethnic identity politics, and then stacking the sides in your favour by importing more immigrants.
A bit of a straw man argument there. Does anyone actually believe the following is in anyway true?
"For centuries, the English have been taught that the late medieval Church was superstitious, corrupt, exploitative, and alien. Above all, we were told that King Henry VIII and the people of England despised its popish flummery and primitive rites. England was fed up to the back teeth with the ignorant mumbo-jumbo magicians of the foreign Church..."
Apparently Catholic England was a place of fun and jollity, and people getting happily pissed.
Henry VIII was by some margin, the nastiest King that England ever had.
Yet paradoxically also perhaps the most cultured, what with all the composing and so on.
The housing policy would be a tougher sell, but the minimum wage I don't see any issues. It would be paid for by businesses, not the taxpayer. As for housing, there is a specific issue of supply shortages, the only way to resolve it would be to increase supply drastically (20-25k flats per year in London) in the £200-250k range and limit the ownership to people earning under £44k per year (basic rate tax payers) and have them hold onto said flats as owner occupiers for at least 5 or 7 years. Do it on a non-profit basis and then call it a day.
Well, there is another way to resolve it: mass building of new social housing. Can't see the Tories going for it, but it might be a good policy for Labour, particularly as it could be announced as a nationwide project.
A politician trying to win seats elsewhere making an argument that people on £60k plus in London deserve taxpayer-funded housing subsidies would have a fun time.
Well there aren't all on that, are they? Many key healthcare workers and private sector rank and file earn nothing like that. Nothing at all like that. This is many provincials' weird and wacky view of London – that it is paved with gold and people earn a fortune.
In fact, the median wage in the capital is about £28,000.
Not that I would expect you have any idea what London is like, as you have never even bothered to visit us!
7 years now and Labour still cannot accept that they are not running Scotland and people like you sit down south and lap up manure from the Torygraph. It is bullshit , you should stop consuming it.
So you support the suppression of a minority report critical of the SNP government, but piss & moan when one of very many opinion polls is not published?
Welcome to the Brave New SNPland.....
Your hysteria is touching, the torygraph says they are scared to speak out in case they lose their free money , even if it is just in their heads as the government have not threatened them. The torygraph then details the petty crap they are peddling in their supposed " suppressed report ". The only suppression is in their petty heads and the imagination of a sad hack at the torygraph. The supposed academics are bricking it in case their golden lifestyle is disturbed, they pause to look up from the public trough to whinge that change may mean they get less spoils. Thick Tories count that as suppression , so they did not voice their opinions as they were supposedly scared and then blurt it to newspaper and this is supposed to be SNP suppressing a report that does not exist. Some trougher being scared to give their opinion is hardly suppression except in the tortured mind of Tories. Do you ever read the crap you post, welcome to lying thieving pompous condescending TORYland.
I know you easily get confused......but I was referring to the SNP MSPs rewriting a report critical of the SNP government's EU position, and suppressing the minority report pointing this out.....but we know you think the SNP and Scotland are synonymous...
You seem confused. The committee including cross party MSP's wrote the report and published it , that is democracy. It was not an SNP report. You are trying to conflate sour grapes with democracy and not painting a pretty picture.
A politician trying to win seats elsewhere making an argument that people on £60k plus in London deserve taxpayer-funded housing subsidies would have a fun time.
Well there aren't all on that, are they? Many key healthcare workers and private sector rank and file earn nothing like that. Nothing at all like that. This is many provincials' weird and wacky view of London – that it is paved with gold and people earn a fortune.
In fact, the median wage in the capital is about £28,000.
Not that I would expect you have any idea what London is like, as you have never even bothered to visit us!
The housing policy would be a tougher sell, but the minimum wage I don't see any issues. It would be paid for by businesses, not the taxpayer. As for housing, there is a specific issue of supply shortages, the only way to resolve it would be to increase supply drastically (20-25k flats per year in London) in the £200-250k range and limit the ownership to people earning under £44k per year (basic rate tax payers) and have them hold onto said flats as owner occupiers for at least 5 or 7 years. Do it on a non-profit basis and then call it a day.
Well, there is another way to resolve it: mass building of new social housing. Can't see the Tories going for it, but it might be a good policy for Labour, particularly as you could announce it as a nationwide project.
That would also resolve a worry about MaxPB's proposals - that public money is being injected into the system for private profit (and, given the state of the London housing bubble, possibly also disastrous loss). It is one of the things that worries me about the MP (and MSP!) expenses system that mortgage subsidies encourage politicians to have an incentive to tap into an inflated housing market.
IIRC, policemen and firemen routinely had houses provided in the old days. That's another solution, for employers to provide social housing for key workers.
Mr. Fett, a free tip for trying to win arguments with non-Londoners: 'provincials' isn't necessarily going to get them on-side. Yorkshire isn't a province, some far flung sandy shore conquered long ago. It's just as English as London.
A politician trying to win seats elsewhere making an argument that people on £60k plus in London deserve taxpayer-funded housing subsidies would have a fun time.
Well there aren't all on that, are they? Many key healthcare workers and private sector rank and file earn nothing like that. Nothing at all like that. This is many provincials' weird and wacky view of London – that it is paved with gold and people earn a fortune.
In fact, the median wage in the capital is about £28,000.
Not that I would expect you have any idea what London is like, as you have never even bothered to visit us!
A politician trying to win seats elsewhere making an argument that people on £60k plus in London deserve taxpayer-funded housing subsidies would have a fun time.
Well there aren't all on that, are they? Many key healthcare workers and private sector rank and file earn nothing like that. Nothing at all like that. This is many provincials' weird and wacky view of London – that it is paved with gold and people earn a fortune.
In fact, the median wage in the capital is about £28,000.
Not that I would expect you have any idea what London is like, as you have never even bothered to visit us!
The housing policy would be a tougher sell, but the minimum wage I don't see any issues. It would be paid for by businesses, not the taxpayer. As for housing, there is a specific issue of supply shortages, the only way to resolve it would be to increase supply drastically (20-25k flats per year in London) in the £200-250k range and limit the ownership to people earning under £44k per year (basic rate tax payers) and have them hold onto said flats as owner occupiers for at least 5 or 7 years. Do it on a non-profit basis and then call it a day.
Well, there is another way to resolve it: mass building of new social housing. Can't see the Tories going for it, but it might be a good policy for Labour.
The problem with social housing is that it does nothing to help "generation rent", it will just be another leg up to the non-working classes and newly arrived immigrants. If the Tories want to win in London they need to do something for the million or so 24-40 year old people renting in the private sector with no chance of property ownership because of sky high prices. Shifting them to renting in the public sector doesn't really change the fundamental picture. They need to build flats for sale to people on the basic rate, flats that can't be flipped quickly for a profit either, they can only be resold to other people on the basic rate for the original purchase price for the first 5 or 7 years (or something to that effect).
The problem is that the BBC tries too hard sometimes. It has a metropolitan, liberal bias and suddenly notices so swings wildly the other way before bouncing back. A bit like one of those bounce-bag toys. It is what it is, but it means well.
They need London specific policy of the same kind that gets Boris elected.
I'd be careful about that. Any party announcing London specific policies will be very negatively received elsewhere in the country.
I think stuff specific to lower paid workers and housing costs would not be controversial, pretty much everyone in the country realises that London is not like the rest of the country and having the minimum wage set to £7.20 per hour and spending some government money to allow middle and lower income people onto the housing ladder in London is not going to be a big problem. Any talk of different tax rates or allowing London to keep some of its huge tax surplus would go too far. Specific help for middle and lower income people in London is uncontroversial..
How would you prevent such a policy from being portrayed thus: London has too much money sloshing around to deal with its own workers decently, so the rest of the UK has to pump even more money into it? Surely not likely to go down well.
Only a lunatic could imagine that taxing the rest of the country more to subsidise businesses and middle class in London is reasonable
A politician trying to win seats elsewhere making an argument that people on £60k plus in London deserve taxpayer-funded housing subsidies would have a fun time.
Well there aren't all on that, are they? Many key healthcare workers and private sector rank and file earn nothing like that. Nothing at all like that. This is many provincials' weird and wacky view of London – that it is paved with gold and people earn a fortune.
In fact, the median wage in the capital is about £28,000.
Not that I would expect you have any idea what London is like, as you have never even bothered to visit us!
A politician trying to win seats elsewhere making an argument that people on £60k plus in London deserve taxpayer-funded housing subsidies would have a fun time.
Well there aren't all on that, are they? Many key healthcare workers and private sector rank and file earn nothing like that. Nothing at all like that. This is many provincials' weird and wacky view of London – that it is paved with gold and people earn a fortune.
In fact, the median wage in the capital is about £28,000.
Not that I would expect you have any idea what London is like, as you have never even bothered to visit us!
I said on this forum that London was moving even more Labour, in part in reaction to the Kipper surge elsewhere. Looking like a good night down here for the red team.
Right. They don't do well among British born people, but they cater very well to immigrants. Hence they have done very well in the most foreign part of the UK. It's why they want to continue mass migration so that the rest of the country is remade like London.
You are like a broken record, obsessed with immigration. Do you think the affluent middle class Labour vote in London is largely foreign born?
No, but I don't think the Labour affluent middle class vote is enough to win elections. They need large majorities among the poor ethnic minorities to do that. Wealthy places like West Hampstead and Queen's Park tend to lean conservative.
I'm sorry if you feel it's a broken record, but different voting patterns by ethnic group are a key explanatory factor. You might not like the conclusions people form from that, but it's the case. I suspect that white British voters in London voted pretty similarly to the rest of the country.
So you have gone from "British-born" to "white British" in a heartbeat. Telling. Losing the argument again.
I'm merely basing my views on the available evidence. If there was data available on voting pattern by place of birth, I would have used that. But apparently the lack of data there makes me a racist.
Of course, it's a classic Labour tactic to play the racist card when you've lost the argument. You couldn't even respond to my individual arguments. No wonder, when the last government's political legacy was reckless wars in foreign policy, boom and an almighty bust in economic policy, and mass immigration and an authoritarian state in domestic policy. The only way you can gain in the polls is to play divide and rule with ethnic identity politics, and then stacking the sides in your favour by importing more immigrants.
Erm, you were the one who used the word racist. I merely pointed that you had immediately changed the metric because you had lost the argument.
Comments
Overall, UKIP clearly rampant outside the big cities and Labour losing the early spin war, though the London, Bristol and Cambridge results should adjust that. We can debate individual results to death but the elephant in the room is clearly UKIP's substantial impact: nobody seriously knows what will happen next with that. If a Tory marginal shows UKIP 1 Lab 2 Con 3, or a Lab marginal shows UKIP 1 Con 2 Lab 3, what do we guess for 2015? Because of the strong regional and class differential it could produce some very varying constituency results - e.g. Labour's 3rd-placed Daniel Zeichner in Cambridge must be feeling cheerful this morning.
Paul Waugh; Outgoing Tory leader of Croydon: Tory switchers to UKIP let Lab in. "The annoying thing here is that UKIP have lots of votes but no seats"
Laura Kuenssberg: Point about labour is precedent suggests they shd be taking 300-500 seats this stage in cycle -that's why Alexander has to 'defend' campaign
Brogan; Quite a good result for Tories: #vote2014 story so far is not about them - Labour in deep trouble; Ukip surge; LDs hit; Tories? Meh!
Miliband's PR team is crap, endless shots of him drinking tea from poorly lit photos on Twitter, photostunts falling apart time and time again, make me wonder if Labour have little or no faith in the guy. It is as if nothing has been remembered from the Blair years.
The Unions on the other hand...
Fits in with the opinion polling, that 2012 was Lab's high water mark, and it's only downhill from then on.
Politics is all about the big mo(mentum)
The Rotherham splits might be interesting as well.
Your hysteria is touching, the torygraph says they are scared to speak out in case they lose their free money , even if it is just in their heads as the government have not threatened them. The torygraph then details the petty crap they are peddling in their supposed " suppressed report ". The only suppression is in their petty heads and the imagination of a sad hack at the torygraph. The supposed academics are bricking it in case their golden lifestyle is disturbed, they pause to look up from the public trough to whinge that change may mean they get less spoils. Thick Tories count that as suppression , so they did not voice their opinions as they were supposedly scared and then blurt it to newspaper and this is supposed to be SNP suppressing a report that does not exist.
Some trougher being scared to give their opinion is hardly suppression except in the tortured mind of Tories.
Do you ever read the crap you post, welcome to lying thieving pompous condescending TORYland.
If avoiding eternal coalition government, and creating decisive electoral outcomes, is more important to people than having the Commons more accurately reflect the diversity of public opinion, then such a result only confirms that judgement, rather than challenges it.
It's also worth remembering one of the few things that all three parties agreed on before the next election - the desirability of introducing a recall mechanism for MPs - has not occurred. Pondering why that has likely been the case, and the parallels with the effect on MPs careers from introducing any form of PR, and it is clear that any sort of perverse election result will not result in reform.
The only thing that might encourage reform would be the situation where an incumbent government saw PR as the only way of saving themselves from electoral oblivion under FPTP.
BRITISH voters have woken up this morning mortified about what they got up to at yesterday’s elections.
http://www.thedailymash.co.uk/politics/politics-headlines/voters-do-walk-of-shame-2014052386883
The Tories need to go back to HQ today and take a look at what they need to do to win in London. H+F have done a fucking brilliant job and Labour have done a pretty poor job in Enfield, losing ground in both seats is not where they want to be. They need London specific policy of the same kind that gets Boris elected. I would look at a higher minimum wage in London to reflect the higher cost of living as a priority. I would also look at publicly financed house/flat building across the capital. When I worked for Sony the number one issue was getting on the housing ladder, and believe me it is very tough to make it happen on less than £45k gross regardless of the kind of deposit one might have saved. It took me three promotions and major pay rises before I could afford a decent place in zone 2. It should not be the preserve of senior level and board level management to afford flats and houses in zone 2 (and soon 3).
There does need to be some level of government intervention on the supply side to get flats built between the £200-250k range in and around zone 2, and slightly lower in zone 3. People talk about gentrification in certain areas to drive the Con vote, but a lot of these people are not owner occupiers, they are renters and they hold a grudge against the government because they have been priced out of ownership in desirable areas. Until the Torie are on the side of working people in London who want to own a flat (HtB does nothing when the flat costs £450k and wages are £40k) and not on the side of rich oligarchs and the people selling up in zone 1 at inflated prices and spraying their funny money in areas like H+F driving up house prices to levels which young professionals who should be natural Con voters can't afford.
As for UKIP, allying themselves with the Cons seems like a one way ticket to becoming a southern party again. Farage and the party machine should resist any calls to enter any kind of alliance with the Tories. The furthest he should go is to say where UKIP may end up unseating a Eurosceptic or BOO Tory, take the campaigning easy to ensure they don't split the vote to allow a Europhile Labour MP in (the same, of course goes for any Eurosceptic/BOO Labour MP).
Labour can't win until they get rid of their trendy metropolitan leader. They have done well in London, but at the expense of what should be their core WWC vote. Labour are lucky there weren't more local elections in the North.
Con 13,422 (30.93%)
UKIP 8,168 (18.82%)
Inds 7,918 (18.24%)
Lab 7,866 (18.12%)
LD 5,453 (12.56%)
Green 556 (1.28%
NF 18 (0.04%)
Changes since 2010 locals:
Con -5.68%
UKIP +14.64%
Inds +6.07%
Lab +3.14%
LD -13.13%
Green +0.04%
As far as I can tell at the moment Labour are gaining fewer council seats than UKIP. That is a poor performance in my view.
http://uk.reuters.com/article/2014/05/22/uk-eu-election-netherlands-idUKKBN0E224820140522
Saw a clip of Farage speaking this morning where he basically ruled out a pact with the Conservatives. He also said he'd throw the kitchen sink at targeted seats in the General Election (common sense, at last?) which may well mean an unofficial policy of not wasting resources in other areas, perhaps most notably the most sceptical MPs.
LD 44.0% UKIP 28.4% Con 15.8% Lab 11.0% Others 0.8%
changes from Survation poll
LD plus 5.5%
UKIP plus 0.4%
Con minus 6.4%
Lab plus 1.7%
Others minus 1.2%
Cambridge Parliamentary seat
Lab 39 LD 29 Con 14 Green 14 Others 4
compared to 2012
Lab 42 LD 26 Con 15 Green 10 Others 6
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/politics/councils/E08000025
http://www.steerdaviesgleave.com/news-and-insights/Shining-a-light-on-UK-rail-fares
So UKIP are ding very well in the loclas with lots more gains to come total gains( c200 total)?.
what about Labour.Two factors at work the UKIP protest surge has reduced the swing from Con to Labour.The swing has also been because Labour in 2010 had the benefittof higher turnout for Labour voters at locals because it coincide with the GE.So at best a patchy performance of seat and council gains.
for the Conservatives a larger loss of council control than expected primarily due to UKIP intervention.The problem is that a mid teens poll rating at the GE for UKIP could do damage to Con chances in marginals.
And finally the Lib dems.looking like losses of c300l seats two councils already lost-Cambridge and Pwith maybe Kingston and Three rivers to follow.Evidence of doing best in areas where strong patchy yes in Eastleigh and Colchester but no in Cambridge and maybe Kingston.
The way ahead can only be intense hold.focus of all resources on the 57 seats they currently hold.
A fine?....... obviously price fixing is a petty crime then?
I've said for a while that Clegg was a patriot but he thinks his country's the EU, and his recent utterances on it being (in his words) unpatriotic and chauvinistic to be against the EU rather support that.
The EU is not only a bad thing, it's inherently unworkable. As a trade organisation it could work, but the sovereign debt crisis has shown the folly of attempting to put a dozen or more countries into a monetary straitjacket, and the response of the eurozone to try and increase integration will only make the pain of the next crash worse and the process of disentangling the nation-states from the tentacles of the euro even more difficult.
London is Daves big problem for 2015, I can't see any way he gets a majority, but I'd now have him marginal favourite to remain PM.
UKIP have done very very well! Sky have them taking Castle Point (that's on the back of the Indy in 2010), and I am certain they will win the Euros. My feeling is their vote will be much stickier this time, but I think it's the WWC who will stick hardest, I'd add 3 to the Tory score and one to Labour and take 4 from UKIP in polling and there's your GE projection.
Positive for Labour - Hammersmith, Redbridge
Positive for Lib Dems - Sutton and Eastleigh
Positive for Tories - Kingston, Swindon, Tamworth etc
Lab 7,730 (40.02%)
Con 5,297 (27.43%)
UKIP 4,520 (23.40%)
LD 907 (4.70%)
Green 467 (2.42%)
TUSC 353 (1.83%)
Ind 40 (0.21%)
Changes since 2010 locals:
Lab +3.97%
Con -6.57%
UKIP +18.68%
LD -18.37%
Green +2.42%
Swing, Con to Lab: 5.27%
Yet the Standard said last night that, if Labour wins Hammersmith back, Ed can measure up the curtains to No. 10. I wonder if they will reference that forecast later?
Interesting article on pre-reformation catholic England.
http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/dominicselwood/100272287/how-a-protestant-spin-machine-hid-the-truth-about-the-english-reformation/
I'm sorry if you feel it's a broken record, but different voting patterns by ethnic group are a key explanatory factor. You might not like the conclusions people form from that, but it's the case. I suspect that white British voters in London voted pretty similarly to the rest of the country.
How would you prevent such a policy from being portrayed thus: London has too much money sloshing around to deal with its own workers decently, so the rest of the UK has to pump even more money into it? Surely not likely to go down well.
Admittedly I didn't get the best possible timing, but that wasn't too bad. I then lumped on UKIP Most Seats at 1.87.
Hope that's sufficient 'fessing up for you.
Will Rallings and Thrasher local elections forecasts for LAB to make 490 gains likely to be achieved - or even surpassed…?
Prediction: Labour highest party, just short of majority... but a weak government.
The weight of cash wanting to lay UKIP is concerning, but it could just be people greening up ?
I've got it neck and neck in seats, Dave remains PM, one year programme, back to the polls. Scotland is now critical.
There may be a case for regional minimum wages, though I'd need some convincing, but the rest of the country funnelling money towards London's property market would not go down well at all.
This sort of thing is just one more reason why Balkanising England by carving it up into shitty little regional assemblies would be despicable. London gets more funding per head than the rest of England, but it also contributes more than any other area to the Treasury.
So, at least one side (and possibly both) would be pissed off with the funding arrangements for the rubbish regional assemblies. Either poorer areas get less per head and feel like they're funding a wealthy city, or London feels like it's contributing almost everything and getting back far less than its fair share. (It's practically identical to the way it's possible to see Scotland either getting more than its fair share or more than paying its own way).
So Mike's away, I'm in charge and away from the site for the next three hours or so.
Expect a major political story to break in the next three hours.
Cabinet resignation, Ed Miliband is actually Conchita Wurst, Boris defects to Labour, that kind of thing.
"For centuries, the English have been taught that the late medieval Church was superstitious, corrupt, exploitative, and alien. Above all, we were told that King Henry VIII and the people of England despised its popish flummery and primitive rites. England was fed up to the back teeth with the ignorant mumbo-jumbo magicians of the foreign Church..."
Apparently Catholic England was a place of fun and jollity, and people getting happily pissed.
Con 9,883 (44.93%)
Lab 6,391 (29.06%)
UKIP 3,925 (17.84%)
LD 1,013 (4.61%)
Green 726 (3.30%)
Changes since 2010 locals:
Con -0.08%
Lab +13.17%
UKIP +16.20%
LD -30.70%
Green +3.30%
Lab +3.97%
LD -18.37&
Lab going backwards
Con 27%
Ukip 23%
vs Con splitters
A politician trying to win seats elsewhere making an argument that people on £60k plus in London deserve taxpayer-funded housing subsidies would have a fun time.
Labour was matched at 2.0, then with a 3.2/5.0 gap it gets matchd all the way at the top at 5.0 o_O ?!
He looks too good to resist at 8-1...
However, there is still one year to go, so if there's another nudge in the electoral arithmetic away from Miliband he fails to become PM.
Vote share Con 37% Lab 26% LD 18% UKIP 15% Green 3% Others 1%
Probably a disaster for Ed Miliband though.
Of course, it's a classic Labour tactic to play the racist card when you've lost the argument. You couldn't even respond to my individual arguments. No wonder, when the last government's political legacy was reckless wars in foreign policy, boom and an almighty bust in economic policy, and mass immigration and an authoritarian state in domestic policy. The only way you can gain in the polls is to play divide and rule with ethnic identity politics, and then stacking the sides in your favour by importing more immigrants.
In fact, the median wage in the capital is about £28,000.
Not that I would expect you have any idea what London is like, as you have never even bothered to visit us!
You seem confused. The committee including cross party MSP's wrote the report and published it , that is democracy. It was not an SNP report.
You are trying to conflate sour grapes with democracy and not painting a pretty picture.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-27531094
Which would be a normal turnout for the UK.
http://www.ukpolitical.info/european-parliament-election-turnout.htm
IIRC, policemen and firemen routinely had houses provided in the old days. That's another solution, for employers to provide social housing for key workers.
I've noticed that too.
The problem is that the BBC tries too hard sometimes. It has a metropolitan, liberal bias and suddenly notices so swings wildly the other way before bouncing back. A bit like one of those bounce-bag toys. It is what it is, but it means well.