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politicalbetting.com » Blog Archive » Election 2014: A 3-act drama and the plot’s bubbling nicely
politicalbetting.com » Blog Archive » Election 2014: A 3-act drama and the plot’s bubbling nicely
The last time any party other than Labour or the Conservatives won a UK-wide election, women didn’t have the vote, the future RMS Titanic was still under construction and the Ottoman Empire stretched to the shores of the Adriatic. That 103-year long shut-out will probably end this week.
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The locals give us a much better indication for 2015, but even they are loaded and imperfect. They do at least have the advantage of being real UK elections with a real and personal effect and connection to the voter.
Newark is an odd one. It may be the last chance for the English voter to 'send a message', but is that enough for UKIP to take it from nowhere? 4/1 is about right.
It will probably the only opposition seat as LDs and Con have already lost all the wards where they got Cllrs in 2010
The Euros certainly look interesting and I am putting more money on Ukip not coming first.
Rahman: 37,395
Labour: 34,143
As for disastrous locals, perhaps you would care to look at the LibDem performance. You finished behind UKIP on national vote share.
UKIP 27,355 (32.43%)
Lab 27,095 (32.12%)
Con 24,524 (29.07%)
Green 4,494 (5.33%)
LD 767 (0.91%)
BNP 123 (0.15%)
Changes since 2010 locals:
UKIP +22.14%
Lab -1.74%
Con -10.66%
Green +4.30%
LD -12.30%
BNP -1.20%
Ind -0.19%
NF -0.36%
Is that your £500 waiting to lay UKIP @ 1.23 up on Betfair
http://moderngov.kingston.gov.uk/mgElectionAreaResults.aspx?XXR=0&ID=69&RPID=13443473
UKIP 12,763 (39.03%)
Lab 9,822 (30.04%)
Con 9,187 (28.10%)
LD 817 (2.50%) — no candidates in 2010, 14/16 this time
NF 110 (0.34%)
Changes since 2010 locals:
UKIP +30.91%
Lab -8.31%
Con -9.79%
LD +2.50%
NF +0.34%
BNP -13.16% (not standing this time)
Ind -2.49% ('' '')
History suggests that the Lib-Lab-Cons and their BBC chums will be smearing and lying about UKIP for many, many years to come. Oh joy.
Con 2/5 (Lad)
UKIP 4/1 (SJ)
Lab 12/1 (Betfair)
Grn 200/1
LD 300/1
Betfair - In-Play - European Parliament Election 2014 - Most Votes (114,039 pounds matched)
UKIP 1.27
Lab 4.3
Con 40
Betfair - In-Play - European Parliament Election 2014 - Most Seats (117,275 pounds matched)
UKIP 1.39
Lab 3.5
Con 44
Mike's contribution this morning brings to mind two words: Angus and Reid.
I'm afraid that Mike's assessment of the usefulness of any given tool depends on how close the output of said tool corresponds with his own preconceptions.
Con 23.9%, Lab 35.8%, LD 12.9%, UKIP 17.7%
AndyJS' votes cast was:
Con 28.1%, Lab 33.7%, LD 10.8%, UKIP 18.4%
Survation's EU Parliament poll was:
Con 23%, Lab 27%, LD 9%, UKIP 32%.
http://survation.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/05/May-voting-poll-Mirror-tables.pdf
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/ccc?key=0At91c3wX1Wu5dGZMVENacEVqMUI0bWZaQk13c041S3c&usp=sheets_web#gid=0
This interests me.
The Scottish Tories have achieved more than 15% (and less than 20%) of the popular vote in every national Scottish election in the last 20 years as far as I can tell, both to Westminster and Holyrood.
What is the nature of this "denial"?
If we end up with a separated Scotland, I'd say that may well lead to a Scottish Conservative recovery. Clearly there is a strong core support at that level.
BBC Lab 1891+292,CON 1259-201,LD 404-284,UKIP 157+155
Guardian Lab 2047+328,CON 1333-171,LD 409-244,UKIP163+128
And what finally were share figures?the 17% figure for UKIP looks too low.
The Scottish Tories have achieved more than 15% (and less than 20%) of the popular vote in every national Scottish election in the last 20 years as far as I can tell, both to Westminster and Holyrood.
What is the nature of this "denial"?
If we end up with a separated Scotland, I'd say that may well lead to a Scottish Conservative recovery. Clearly there is a strong core support at that level.
Agreed. Independence would give a big boost to the centre-right in Scotland. I myself will be leaving the SNP post-independence and helping to build a solid centre-right force in Scottish politics. And there are a significant number of SNP members like me who believe in the wisdom of market forces and entrepreneurship.
The 15% core SCON vote that you identify hides the fact that at least the same number again (actually, probably more like another 25% of the electorate) are also centre-right in their thinking. It is just that they cannot bring themselves to ever vote for Ruth's sorry bunch. Very few self-respecting Scots could.
Treasury sources said they decided to conduct the most “comprehensive” analysis yet of a separate Scotland’s finances after the Scottish Government’s 670-page White Paper on independence included only a single page of figures covering one financial year.........
Civil servants have calculated that Scotland would need the population increase over the next 20 years – the equivalent of a city the size of Edinburgh – because there are fewer workers north of the Border paying taxes to fund each OAP’s pension......
The White Paper suggested increasing immigration to help meet the pension funding shortfall but gave no indication about the scale of the influx that would be required.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/scotland/10852942/Independent-Scotland-would-need-500000-more-immigrants-to-afford-state-pension.html
Treasury sources said they decided to conduct the most “comprehensive” analysis yet of a separate Scotland’s finances after the Scottish Government’s 670-page White Paper on independence included only a single page of figures covering one financial year.........
Civil servants have calculated that Scotland would need the population increase over the next 20 years – the equivalent of a city the size of Edinburgh – because there are fewer workers north of the Border paying taxes to fund each OAP’s pension......
The White Paper suggested increasing immigration to help meet the pension funding shortfall but gave no indication about the scale of the influx that would be required.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/scotland/10852942/Independent-Scotland-would-need-500000-more-immigrants-to-afford-state-pension.html
Too wee. Too poor. Too stupid.
Yes, yes, we've heard it all before. But, by all means, give the old gramophone record another crank. This time it it sure to convert all those floating voters, unlike the previous ten million performances of the cracked record.
Next, UKIP's problem is a consequence of its novelty. It didn't know how to focus its energies on its winnable seats because it didn't know where they were. It does now, and I expect Farage to make full use of the information he now has (even if it means losing a few disgruntled activists on the way).
And then there's the real problem... representative democracy is hypothecated on the legitimacy of power. (Or the existence of authority, if you prefer to call it that.) And every day there are more voters who, for a variety of reasons on both left and right, no longer consider Parliaments and Councils - possibly even because we have more of the former and fewer of the latter than a couple of generations ago - authoritative, legitimate. I don't know why this should be so (and I can't say that the name of any Peebie who does springs to mind, either) although partial answers must surely include:-
(a) the failure of politicians to arrest national economic decline - possibly an unreasonable expectation, but there it is - for such decline leads inevitably to demographic decline and so, together with the laws of economics, employers are led to prefer immigrant to indigenous labour (even when the latter is available). This leads to more and more voters looking for a party that is bound to be in opposition - and markets meet demand so UKIP and the Greens are parties in their own right, not factions within larger ones, as they would be in, say, the USA.
(b) a further consequence of demographic decline: the ageing of the electorate - it is always harder to respect those much younger than yourself, it doesn't come naturally but requires a conscious act of will.
WRT comparing 2013/2014 for UKIP :-
1. The meaningful comparison to draw is in those districts thad had elections in both years. For example, UKIP certainly polled worse in Eastleigh, but look as if they polled better in Essex, and about the same in Hertfordshire. Presumably, we can check this from Andy J S ' excellent spreadsheets.
2. Wait till R & T deliver their verdict. Their analysis is the most definitive. In terms of seats won, UKIP's performance was at the top end of most analysts' expectations.
WRT the Euros, if Survation are right, we should expect to see UKIP poll about two thirds better than in the locals.
Yes, yes, we've heard it all before. But, by all means, give the old gramophone record another crank. This time it it sure to convert all those floating voters, unlike the previous ten million performances of the cracked record.
Just one page of economic analysis in a 670 page White Paper?
That didn't spell out that "some" immigration was "500,000"?
You can hardly complain if someone else is doing the homework the SNP should have done.
But we know how the SNP deals with dissenting opinion in Scotland:
SNP MSPs have been accused of "doctoring" a Holyrood committee report on an independent Scotland's EU membership.
http://www.heraldscotland.com/politics/referendum-news/snp-under-fire-for-doctored-report-on-eu-membership.24309029
Welcome to the brave new SNPLAND!
As for the locals, I was looking at the numbers - the real ones, not projections that are at best questionable. Now it might be that it's not easy trying to produce a national equivalent share when UKIP have usually polled low single digits and then soar to four-, five- or more-fold. How do you know what the real areas of strength are? How do handle all the seats they didn't stand in last time? My guess is that the NEV projection is based far too much on UNS and misses a sufficient element of proportionality, and hence is being skewed by not doing too well in London (a factor that almost certainly wasn't accounted for in 2013 as there were no elections there even though the 2009 Euros showed it to be an area of weakness second only to Scotland).
As I said in the leader, the locals were neither a triumph nor a disaster for any party. If I had to give scores, they'd be:
UKIP 7/10 - very strong advance in the polls, similar to last year across England outside London, marred by a failure to take more seats.
Lab 5.5/10 - gains short of expectations and leakage of votes in their heartlands, but gains all the same.
Con - 4.5/10 - progress in terms of catching Labour but mainly because Labour is leaking rather than the Tories going up.
LD - 3/10 - more losses than the Tories despite starting with far fewer councillors. Some areas of resilience in local strength but far from all; near wipeout votewise in many others.
The SNP only claim Scotland is too wee and too poor to have it's own currency with too small a tax base to fund their wild schemes.
It's UKIP that claim their voters are too stupid.
@reporterboy: That UKIP do worse in younger high density multi-cultural better educated areas is true...not sure how smart it is of them to point it out
I wonder if someone could enlighten me about PNS. I'm used to dealing with statistics, and I understand the difference between populations and statistics.
Your sample is unrepresentative (bad), so you need to make allowances for this (bad), This is possible only if you have information about the population - why the sample is unrepresentative for example. I understand why they use previous voting patterns and such but the assumption is that this is static. And that young educated cockneys will behave like young educated Scots like MalcolmG, for example.
Therefore the statisticians make assumptions based on previous experience of a party like Ukip coming through and having such an "interesting" media baptism.
You would have to make some very broad assumptions. Indeed some very brave assumptions. You might be totally wrong and you'd have no idea about standard errors.
So overall, am I right in assuming that it's what we used to call (with tongue in cheek) an educated guess?
An interesting exercise but only that, surely?
Very interesting piece, cheers for writing it, Mr. Herdson.
I must admit, I'd forgotten about Newark and expected Act III to be the Scottish vote. It'll be intriguing to see how the European votes go, just a shame we have to wait a day and a half for counting to start.
F1: P3 is from 10-11am, so I hope to have a pre-qualifying piece up shortly after 11.
- "every day there are more voters who, for a variety of reasons on both left and right, no longer consider Parliaments and Councils - possibly even because we have more of the former and fewer of the latter than a couple of generations ago - authoritative, legitimate. I don't know why this should be so "
Is Ted Heath's vandalisation of the county system in the 1970s not a huge part of the explanation?
Take Scotland for example, where local identities with nearly a thousand years of continuous history (eg. Moray, Ayrshire, Wigtownshire) were wiped out by a distant government in London that did not even have a majority of Scottish MPs. That wilful destruction of many local "demos" lead to a fundamental erosion of voter trust in authority and power.
Perhaps only a detail, but I cannot help feeling that the destruction of the county system was some kind of turning point.
In a withering attack on one of the first minister's flagship policies for September's referendum, the Treasury said Salmond's Swedish-style proposals were based on hiring about 21,000 unemployed women who did not exist.
http://www.theguardian.com/politics/2014/may/24/alex-salmond-free-nursery-promise-treasury-scottish-independence
I expect they are locked in a room somewhere along with Salmond's EU Legal opinion.....
Lab 9766
UKIP 8358
Con 7247
LD 1930
Green 1001
Other 181
Spectacular gains for UKIP in the old mining areas unseating former MP and Labour leader.
https://audioboo.fm/boos/2189867-ukip-has-taken-votes-from-all-parties
twitter.com/SuzanneEvans1/status/469805939613118465
To a great extent this is to government policy over multiple decades, but also to the development of a consumer led culture and to the availability of information.
Put simply, if - for example - a teacher or a doctor no longer has any power or responsibility (e.g. to decide what they want to teach, to impose discipline where required, to treat their patients as they see fit) then they are no longer decision makers but simply agents in a process. Add into this the belief that you can appeal against any decision that they make - to the head teacher, to the governors, etc - with a good chance that these bodies will overturn the decision for political reasons then there is simply no reason to respect the teacher/doctor.
Bluntly speaking: if you take authority away from these individuals, why should people continue to treat them as if they have it. The answer has to be to find talented individuals, to provided them the freedom to act, to reward them for success and to punish them for failure. The nice all-comforting cuddly blanket approach simply doesn't work.
As for politicians - once there is a culture of questioning all authority figures it is very easy to question leaders as well. Add in the media culture that has developed (thanks Ali - I know Bernard started it, but you are really to blame), the general British wish to mock leaders (a healthy attitude, IMHO), the decline in the quality of politicians as we have seen it shift from a vocation to a career and you have a real problem. That why things such as the Standards Commission are so dangerous - and why I really really hate the rush that politicians have to "report" their opponents for the most minor of transgressions: if these people are suitable to be our national leaders they must, at a minimum, be capable of self-policing. If they need a Standards Commission they simply shouldn't be in Parliament at all.
Grumpf. Rant over. May be I'll be in a better mood after coffee... @alanbrooke and @richardnabavi will be pleased to know I have made a pot of Dunkin' Donuts filter coffee rather than any instant muck ;-)
I suspect this is because (a) they don't want to praise UKIP; (b) Conservatives do badly rapidly (accurately or not) becomes a UKIP takes votes from the Tories story; and (c) who are the another party again?
Well, at least no one would be so daft as to vandalise Scottish regional policing nowadays, would they?
My father-in-law always refused to accept Coventry was not in Warwickshire, so always put the county name on the address when he had to send a letter there. They all got through!!
http://www.conservativehome.com/platform/2014/05/lord-ashcroft-we-dont-yet-know-how-people-many-voted-ukip-in-the-european-elections-but-heres-what-they-think.html
But at the next election, their votes are up for grabs – especially for the Tories. Two thirds of Thursday’s UKIP voters think David Cameron is the best available Prime Minister, compared to a quarter for Ed Miliband. And nearly seven in ten trust Cameron and Osborne more than Miliband and Balls when it comes to running the economy. (Indeed, one in ten Labour voters trust the Tory duo more than their own two Eds).
"As for next May, only half of them expect to stay with UKIP. One fifth already say they will go back to the Tories, one in ten will vote Labour, and 14 per cent say they don’t know what they will do."
The Scottish Tories have achieved more than 15% (and less than 20%) of the popular vote in every national Scottish election in the last 20 years as far as I can tell, both to Westminster and Holyrood.
What is the nature of this "denial"?
If we end up with a separated Scotland, I'd say that may well lead to a Scottish Conservative recovery. Clearly there is a strong core support at that level.
Good morning all. I was going to point out that Stuart is a Tory but just cant bring himself to be a British one so is of the SNP variety. As he says there is a substantial minority within the SNP who are naturally centre-right in their political philosophy and if Scotland votes YES in September I would hope they would return to the (new) fold.
"Took 5&6 year olds to polling booth and asked if they recognised parties on the EP paper. 5yr old said UKIP at top, 6yr old corrected him."
twitter.com/DamianSurvation/status/469382089021067265
Great Yarmouth was good for them, they took 10 out of 13 seats up for election (6 from Tories and 4 from Labour), meaning Labour lost control of the council.
Can one of the experts on here explain the following to me please?
We accept that turnout in the Euros was likely to be higher in areas where there were also council elections on Thursday. The BBC, SKY etc extrapolate the national numbers Lab 31, Tory 29, UKIP 17 and LibDem 13 from the council results.
If the turnout across the rest of the country was lower and even allowing for some people supporting UKIP with their euro vote and a traditional party with their council vote, how can 17% jump to 25-30% ? I ponder this especially given that in Scotland, Wales and those parts of rural England which did not have local elections, UKIP is hardly top dog. UKIP's strongest areas of Kent, Essex and East Anglia had council elections and the best way to describe their achievement is they deprived the Tories of overall control in a number of councils and Labour in the odd one or two.
So there is my question, if 17% is roughly correct as NEV, how on earth in a lower poll could 17% become 25-30% ?
I agree, and most Doctors and Teachers that I know feel regulated to despair by central bodies. It is a major factor in early retirements (it is rare to find a GP over 55 now, but common to be practicing at 70 25 years ago, and in other countries).
One major hope I had from the Tories in 2010 was to fulfill their manifesto promise of letting those of us at the coalface get on with the work without micromanagement by civil servants who do not know their arthroscope from their proctoscope. I was very dissapointed by the simultaneously controlling and ineffective structures that they imposed centrally.
We had our CQC visit earlier this year, they spotted little that mattered and obsessed over irrelevancies. Fortunately we have good and effective Senior Management at our Trust, but there is no way that the CQC is up to the job.
I think Andy Burnham was right in wanting to integrate social care and health care, with local councilors on the board. This would give both accountable local oversight and democracy to the NHS. Ed Milibands kicked into the long grass, seemingly because he sees Burnham as a threat to his own position.
In short, I think respect is mirrored. If politicians trust and respect the people then they will get trust and respect back. If people feel persecuted their only response to central micromanagement can be to vote out their persecutors.
I have to say I'm struggling with the idea that the Locals were a disaster for UKIP. They looked pretty good to me. The issue now, surely, is whether they (and the Euros) are the start of something or a high water mark. One thing seems certain - UKIP voters were by far the most motivated to turn out on Thursday. To have a chance of capitalising on that UKIP needs to maintain its momentum. With that in mind, one thing to watch out for will be the manifesto and the non-EU/immigration policies UKIP develops. Does the leadership and party core stick to its right wing economic outlook or will there be a swing to Old Labour? A lot may hinge on that come the general election.
http://www.peter-ould.net/2014/05/21/final-euros-prediction/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Opinion_polling_for_the_next_United_Kingdom_general_election#Graphical_summary
All the way from complacency to outright denial...
Mr. H, I half-agree. UKIP had been consistently doing well in the polls and beating the Lib Dems, but Clegg's debate offer helped to cement that. It wasn't so much the engine driving the UKIP car as a Clegg-installed supercharger.
You can only base authority on reason (and a GP is an excellent example of this) for so long. Authority is properly based on tradition (e.g. "because I say so, and I am your father") or at the very least the prestige that attaches to having spent years obtaining information and skills. Nowadays information, at least, can be obtained from a keyboard and screen. With no way to check on its value - which suggests, if I again apply market theory, that we want information but have little regard for its quality. And one of the risks of democracy is people saying "so what if the crowd I voted for are a bunch of clowns? We can always vote 'em out next time." And if enough folk say that, all the parties turn into clowns...
We will have very different vote shares on Sunday. Better to look at the raw data compiled by the PB spreadsheet geeks, praise be upon them!
I'd agree about respect for knowledge and experience. Politicians can only be assessed by subjective means, yet they want so-called objective methods for others so they can retain control. Targets are another example. They will be achieved even if the objective is not. But it then allows politicians to claim success even if the service is poorer.
It's a shame about older GPs retiring, Dr Fox, but I suspect there's also the blame culture involved. It must be a complicated job of assessment, and mistakes are inevitable. Inevitable, but there must always be a scapegoat nowadays.
Ukip 36%
Con 32%
Lab 29%
Maybe they would be controlling the council if it wasn't only one-third up for election this week.
Worsening pension terms would not help retention of the most capable, merely drive further departures. I am sure TFS feels much the same.
London results were spectacular ! May 2010 was a very good result for Labour, in the locals and in the GE [ compared to the rUK ]. To build on that was unbelievable.
Thursday / Frday night was a game of two halves.
I remember seeing at one time, UKIP gains of 50+ and Labour in small single digits. At one time I even saw Labour -2. The second half, when London votes rolled in shows what London is. A great city where people do not vote on who moved in next door.
The Hammersmith & Fulham vote was the cream. All of us had thought that H&CF had gone the Wandsworth way. Lowering Council Tax forever by cutting services will create a hard core vote base. They defied that. In Wandsworth too, it was Labour's best result since 1990.
What is noteworthy is that the UKIP support, although more uniform than the lib dems is coalescing in places with UKIP winning the popular vote in places as diverse as Thurrock, Dudley and Rotherham. If they keep calm and build on this then they could be in for a few MPs in 2015. If they and the DUP had 25 seats between them in a hung parliament life would be very interesting..
for the next general election.
I for one would like to hear his parties policies for the UK.
A light needs to be on,what they propose.
Thursday has proved that over the next 11 months there is all to play for and such lead as Labour retains is almost certainly not enough to deliver them a victory next year. There is however a large set of variables between that and a Tory outright victory. Will be interesting to see how the polls react, if at all, in the next few weeks. We have still to see the climax in the Avery v Compouter love bombing
THAT is what the other parties will be fretting about.
If you took the OFCOM on fact value, then no fourth party could possibly ever join the debates. They don't get equal or reasonable media exposure, hence they get no MP's and guess what they are denied a place in the next debate !
We need Mr Farage [ pronounced as "Garage" - we are English ] to articulate his policies and explain like everybody else how they would work and how they would be funded !
It is precisely this kind of writing off of large parts of the electorate which is getting their goat. Douglas Alexander was on the radio on Thursday saying exactly the same thing. Now, he and Miliband might have a point about the importance of marginal in determining elections but who's to say what a marginal is? Rotherham wasn't; it is now, because the voters (who according to the Miliband quote 'don't matter'), have made it so.
For the past 6 weeks all the national print and TV media told the nation that UKIP were dreadful people. Their local election performance appears to have been unaffected by this, and they remain favourites to win the EU Parliament vote.
There are lots of internet and local media outlets that can help UKIP get their message across to potential supporters. As can the traditional political campaigning methods of knocking on doors, and hosting public meetings!
Of course, that's not without peril, as a certain Gordon Brown proved.
However from the Conservative point of view the mantra will be there is only two possible prime ministers Cameron or Milliband therefore the debates will be stifled I expect.
Also it hard to see why the Conservatives would not do a deal with UKIP, as they went into coalition with the Lib Dems to gain power, so why not do a deal to stay in power, with a party more closely aligned to many of your potential voters.
It would be monumentally stupid for UKIP, which has many leftwing supporters, to effectively declare itself a mini-me Conservative Party. The Conservatives would have to provide something tangible for UKIP, such as a free run at prime targets, introducing a new rightwing party into the Commons and causing a major problem for itself in the future.
Perhaps even more importantly, Farage and Cameron loathe one another.