Talk of Better Together reminds me of how graceless and grumpy Alex Salmond was on the telly last night. I know Scotland is a different country, but that can't have been appealing to many people anywhere, can it?
Agreed. Not one of his better efforts. One of the strangest results on a strange night is UKIP coming from nowhere to win a seat in Scotland AND the tory vote rising at the same time (albeit by MoE levels).
Where did the UKIP supporters come from? It would be fascinating to know. The obvious answer is ex Lib Dems and given what happened elsewhere I don't think that can be ruled out. I also wonder if some SNP supporters are not completely engaged with Salmond's love affair with the EU.
Anyway with 63% of the votes for Unionist parties it was a good night for no.
Scotland has as many UKIP MEPs as London which, unlike Scotland, returned a Green MEP. It's hardly a different country, is it?
UKIP's best Scottish result - Moray 13.6% UKIP's Worst rest of UK result - London 16.9%
Seem a pretty clear distinction to me.
Quite. That line of argument would also be more credible if the SNP had about 10 MEPs in England and Wales, and the Tories about half as many. By the way, 17% for Tories is not that impressive by Scottish standards as shown in the Parliament. Basically the Kippers got most of the BNP and a few Europobes, and bumped up a little to get over the boundary for a seat. If that was the worst Mr C or Mr M had to suffer, they'd be delighted.
It's incidentally being very heavily ramped by the BBC (e.g. in the interview with Ms Sturgeon today). I couldn't possibly imagine why.
SNP apologist shock. I note Con plus Ukip is only 1,3% behind the SNP. It looks to me like UKIP have sucked up LD and protest votes thereby limiting Salmond's progress. Scotland is perhaps a bit more rightwing than you would have us believe.
I think the Lib Dems will do better than expected at GE2015.
Last night will be their nadir.
I've always thought Clegg deserves a lot more credit than he's been given for delivering a stable government and tackling the deficit. But then politics is a cruel business.
I reckon they'll hang on to 50 seats at the next GE with Clegg leading the party,
Where do you think they are going to gain seats in England? Scotland alone will put them below 50.
I think maybe 30-35 is a more likely band.
Sorry, I was being boneheaded and thinking they still had 60+ seats. So yes, I think they will likely hold on to 40.
I think Clegg has had his kicking. The tuition fees was a debacle (Lib Dems will have to learn that coalitions are now a very real possibility and hostage-to-fortune popular policies are no longer allowed), losing Laws and Huhne didn't help and Cable's diminishing visibility has exposed Clegg to continual buckets of horse-shit being tipped on his head. But, and this is a mighty big but, they've been pretty impressive in government. Especially as it had been a million years since they'd been in one.
I reckon the Tory/Lib Dem relations have been an improvement on Blair/Brown and both sides have been impressively grown up in their dealings. At GE2015 they'll have a pretty decent record to put to the public.
I suspect there is a large percentage of people out there who would happily see a Tory/Lib Dem coalition back in power. I wouldn't mind it, I think they've done okay.
Certainly better than expected and given the legacy of "there being no money left" and the subsequent Euro disasters, I think things have gone pretty well.
I broadly agree that the government has done reasonably well given their terrible inheritance and that the Lib Dems have contributed materially to the stability and focus of the government. I also agree that both of the Coalition partners have done remarkably well given the lack of governmental experience on both sides.
Where we disagree is what reward, if any, the Lib Dems are going to get for it. I think they will do the same with Parliament as they have with each set of local elections and will lose at least a third of their seats and maybe up to 40% like they did in the locals last week.
This is not fair, they deserve better but I think this is the way it will be. This narrows the window for a repeat stable coalition with either party after the election. Whilst I agree with the majority view on here that a hung Parliament is likely I am a lot less confident that a stable coalition will be possible.
Mr. Isam, I read To Kill A Mockingbird at school. Utterly tedious. The main lesson I took from it was that dressing as ham makes you impervious to knife attacks.
Mind you, I found almost everything (except MacBeth) we read boring. I think the structure of reading in class, as well as being too young to get many Shakespeare references, was not conducive to enjoying books I otherwise might.
MD!
Would you mind awfully if I called you a blithering idiot and recommended a reading list?
I envy you enormously in that whether you take my advice or not there's this simply amazing world before you. I know you half know this anyway in that you've evidenced some reading of the classics, and perhaps a really careful reading of some.
The book that made literature shine for me was "The Citadel" by AJ Cronin. Since I read that though there are many books that have made the world shine more generally - Pride and Predjudice, Les Miserables, Trollope, Dickens, and a virtual infinity of others.
When you've properly sorted yourself out and realised that literature is one of the great pleasures of life then I'd recommend setting aside a few weeks/months to the novels of Patrick O'Brian. The world will never be the same again when you realise he's stolen all that time and yet you'd happily pay the price twice-over.
What a sensible post. With some very interesting personal selections.
Would commenters more experienced (i.e. older) than me care to comment on John Major vs Ed Miliband in weirdness stakes.
I'm always rather skeptical of how much revisionist history there is in terms of someone "looking prime ministerial".
i) John Major was weird but in an authentic, self-effacing way. Miliband is just a metropolitan trust-fund kid with a sense of entitlement.
ii) The hand of Fate, rather than the voters, elevated Major to the premiership. Before then, no-one had heard of him, so he had no need to "look prime ministerial" before the event.
Mr. Llama, assuming STEM's what I think it is, (Science, Technology, Engineering, Maths, or something like that) I think that's a great idea.
You got it , Mr. D.. I meant to type STEMM, of course, (Science, Technology, Engineering, Mathematics and Medicine). As for the rest, all very nice but as a nation we are skint so if someone really wants to go and read history or whatever they can pay for it themselves.
I disagree, We're not that skint, we're just spending our money on the wrong stuff. Scrap overseas aid and fund our kids instead.
I agree with the sentiment that we are spending what money we have on the wrong stuff, but we are really, really skint. The interest on the national debt is now nudging £1bn a week and the debt will be rising for a few more years yet. HMG is still borrowing every week to pay the bills. Come on, Mr. Brooke, you now this stuff as well as I do - one reason why so often and correctly slag off Osborne on these very pages.
Well, if the deficit is ever to be eliminated then some things HMG spends money on will have to go. Overseas Aid, beyond emergency relief, should be one candidate for the axe and non-STEMM HE should be another.
Avast Mr Llama! Maybe these graphs will be informative to you and others?
Just finished a bit of analysis on how the pollsters did with the Euros.
YouGov did best, ComRes worst by some distance, justifying their popular tag, "Comedy Results". ICM and YouGov both understate UKIP (ICM quite significantly), while all other pollsters overstate their support. Overstatement of Labour support and understatement of Conservative support are both almost universal, the notable exception being ICM overstating the Conservative share by 2.1%.
Perhaps the most significant numbers in terms of extrapolating to next year's General Election are the error figures for the gaps between the parties. All pollsters overstate Labour's lead over Conservative - ICM are closest to accurate in this respect, overstating the Labour lead by just 1.5 points, while the average overstatement of Labour's lead is 3.17 points. ComRes again have the worst record here, overstating the Labour lead by 5.5 points. In terms of the Conservative lead over Libdem, this is on average understated by pollsters by 2.43 points, only ICM overstate the Con>Lib lead, by 1.9 points.
Mike / PB team, happy to share my summary page if you want to look into the results any further.
This is a corollary to the first law of UK Polling:
The lowest Labour Poll result is right.
Except at the at general election when all the polsters underestimated Labour in their final polls! What interests me is that often the pollsters still make errors in the same direction for a given contest. i.e this time they (with the exception of ICM) underestimated the conservatives, in 2010 they overestimated Lib_dems and underestimated labour etc.
Would commenters more experienced (i.e. older) than me care to comment on John Major vs Ed Miliband in weirdness stakes.
I'm always rather skeptical of how much revisionist history there is in terms of someone "looking prime ministerial".
John Major was an odd phenomenon. He rose almost without trace holding each of the main offices of state but for very short periods of time. It was a surprise to me when Maggie picked him as her successor to stop Heseltine and I think he was one of the least known PMs before his appointment in recent times. His rise seemed to be modelled on Yes Prime Minister and his similarities with Jim Hacker did not stop there.
His voice was a bit odd and there was a greyness about him that Spitting Image (how I miss that program) made much of. But there was none of the intellectual pretensions or gobbledygook that Ed comes up with. So an odd choice in an odd time with a party that was no longer capable of providing functional government but not as weird.
Mr. Isam, I read To Kill A Mockingbird at school. Utterly tedious. The main lesson I took from it was that dressing as ham makes you impervious to knife attacks.
Mind you, I found almost everything (except MacBeth) we read boring. I think the structure of reading in class, as well as being too young to get many Shakespeare references, was not conducive to enjoying books I otherwise might.
That has to be the most depressing thing I've ever read on PB.
To Kill a Mockingbird is one of the finest books ever written, spawning one of the finest films ever made, Gregory Peck's performance as Atticus Finch is phenomenal.
He won an Oscar, deservedly so.
Beating out Peter O'Toole for Lawerence of Arabia.
If you go through it, O'Toole always seemed to get nominated against tough competition.
The electoral oblivion apparently confronting the Liberal Democrats as led by Nick Clegg was underscored on Monday by leaked opinion polls in four seats showing that the party will be wiped out.
Commissioned by a Lib Dem supporter from ICM and subsequently passed to the Guardian, the polling indicates that the Lib Dem leader would forfeit his own Sheffield Hallam constituency at the next election.
HurstLlama Bursaries for low income STEM students seems sensible, but most STEM students will go on to high earning careers in the City, industry or Medicine and should pay back the fees for the courses which helped get them those careers from their earnings
Just finished a bit of analysis on how the pollsters did with the Euros.
YouGov did best, ComRes worst by some distance, justifying their popular tag, "Comedy Results". ICM and YouGov both understate UKIP (ICM quite significantly), while all other pollsters overstate their support. Overstatement of Labour support and understatement of Conservative support are both almost universal, the notable exception being ICM overstating the Conservative share by 2.1%.
Perhaps the most significant numbers in terms of extrapolating to next year's General Election are the error figures for the gaps between the parties. All pollsters overstate Labour's lead over Conservative - ICM are closest to accurate in this respect, overstating the Labour lead by just 1.5 points, while the average overstatement of Labour's lead is 3.17 points. ComRes again have the worst record here, overstating the Labour lead by 5.5 points. In terms of the Conservative lead over Libdem, this is on average understated by pollsters by 2.43 points, only ICM overstate the Con>Lib lead, by 1.9 points.
Mike / PB team, happy to share my summary page if you want to look into the results any further.
This is a corollary to the first law of UK Polling:
The lowest Labour Poll result is right.
Except at the at general election when all the polsters underestimated Labour in their final polls! What interests me is that often the pollsters still make errors in the same direction for a given contest. i.e this time they (with the exception of ICM) underestimated the conservatives, in 2010 they overestimated Lib_dems and underestimated labour etc.
Pollsters should only take 10/10 voters for Euros.Turnout is appalling compared to what people say they will do.
Prime Ministers tend to be either 2 types - Charismatic like Blair, Thatcher, Wilson or Cameron or decent but dull like John Major, Callaghan or John Howard in Oz. Weird does not normally win, as Hague and Kinnock found out and Ed M is in the latter category. Nor does pleasant but politically mad intellectual, like Foot. Even Heath or Brown had gravitas, something Ed clearly does not
Mr. Llama, assuming STEM's what I think it is, (Science, Technology, Engineering, Maths, or something like that) I think that's a great idea.
You got it , Mr. D.. I meant to type STEMM, of course, (Science, Technology, Engineering, Mathematics and Medicine). As for the rest, all very nice but as a nation we are skint so if someone really wants to go and read history or whatever they can pay for it themselves.
I disagree, We're not that skint, we're just spending our money on the wrong stuff. Scrap overseas aid and fund our kids instead.
I agree with the sentiment that we are spending what money we have on the wrong stuff, but we are really, really skint. The interest on the national debt is now nudging £1bn a week and the debt will be rising for a few more years yet. HMG is still borrowing every week to pay the bills. Come on, Mr. Brooke, you now this stuff as well as I do - one reason why so often and correctly slag off Osborne on these very pages.
Well, if the deficit is ever to be eliminated then some things HMG spends money on will have to go. Overseas Aid, beyond emergency relief, should be one candidate for the axe and non-STEMM HE should be another.
try again - my reply has disappeared !
I know we're in the toilet but the debate is more what and how we should cut. I don't agree with cut all the budgets by X %. We should protect those things needed for our long term health like educating our kids and chop the hell out of crap like overseas aid, quangos, and something for nothing welfare.
UKIP really needed to get more than 30% to be guaranteed seats at the next general election IMO. With 27.5% they could fall back to 15% and win zero seats.
The electoral oblivion apparently confronting the Liberal Democrats as led by Nick Clegg was underscored on Monday by leaked opinion polls in four seats showing that the party will be wiped out.
Commissioned by a Lib Dem supporter from ICM and subsequently passed to the Guardian, the polling indicates that the Lib Dem leader would forfeit his own Sheffield Hallam constituency at the next election.
It's so obvious that barring disaster the Conservatives will now go on to win the General Election. Look:
1. Lab and Cons are neck and neck with 12 months to go. That's dreadful for Labour 2. UKIP don't perform anything like so well in GE polls, just as they didn't in the locals 3. UKIP returning support breaks 2:1 to the Cons 4. The economy is strong and getting stronger. + 5. Governing parties also tend to gain support in the run up 6. EdM is weird (the voters)
They will put on a 5-12% lead between now and GE2015 for a win.
Cameron can also turn UKIP's success to his advantage.His argument in Brussels will be that unless there are significant concessions UKIP will the in /out referendum.Thus he should be able to deliver enough to speak with confidence about what he is likely to get before the 2015 GE.I agree that the weekend results increase the chance of The Tories getting the largest share but it may not be enough to win enough seats for an overall majority.The other factor is the Lib Dem position.The majority of Lib seats have the Cons in second place,If the LD's share does not recover then there is the potential for a large number of Con gains.On the other hand if the LD's recover share it is likely to be from Labour and that could help in Tory/Lab marginals.
Mr. Owl, the Lib Dem proposals were completely ridiculous. One off 15 year terms are just crazy.
Mr. Omnium, I'd say recommend away, but a combination of immense poverty (even worse than I thought...) and having a largely unread Complete Works of Shakespeare means that I'm not really able to buy anything and am very likely to go on a Shakespeare binge once I finish my current book (the last of the many I got for Christmas).
There are Libraries though. They have Librarians too - often quite interestingly!
Although I see entirely that Shakespeare is great I'm not really up to that level yet. I'm not sure I'll ever be, but I do love the odd snippet here and there, plus I generally enjoy his work live. For once I'm sure that there is in fact something beyond me that will pay should I investigate.
Much of the world of art - Picasso's works for example - I simply don't get, or care about getting. I'm sure though that this is an unconscious effort on my part to be a 'literate' and not to care so much about being artistic.
Well I have never voted UKIP but I must say that I do enjoy the spectacle of the smug political elite having a fit of the vapours over the sight of ordinary people voting for someone other than them.
HurstLlama Bursaries for low income STEM students seems sensible, but most STEM students will go on to high earning careers in the City, industry or Medicine and should pay back the fees for the courses which helped get them those careers from their earnings
Bullshit. What do you think a 45% tax rate is for ? Why do you want them to pay an even higher 54% ?
I'm told by people who've met him that in small groups John Major is incredibly charismatic and could work a room better than Blair. He worked the rubber chicken circuit and the 1922 committee very hard - he didn't become PM by accident.
On another topic agree with Mr Eagles, Clegg will win in Hallam easily if he stands and it will never go Labour.
Mr. Lennon, how did the Pirate Party do? Did you seize a pleasing quantity of booty?
Lennon can tell us how he got on in the UK - elsewhere the Pirates lost their two Swedish seats (strong performance by other small parties like Greens and Feminists) but got one back in Germany.
The electoral oblivion apparently confronting the Liberal Democrats as led by Nick Clegg was underscored on Monday by leaked opinion polls in four seats showing that the party will be wiped out.
Commissioned by a Lib Dem supporter from ICM and subsequently passed to the Guardian, the polling indicates that the Lib Dem leader would forfeit his own Sheffield Hallam constituency at the next election.
How realistic are these figures, if they are correct and credible then they are truly horrendous for the Lib Dems. However, there seems no reason particularly to doubt them- the Guardian would presumably have to be quite careful about attributing a poll to ICM if there was any doubt as to whether the poll was actually taken.
Surely the MPs must do something, anything. Loosing 20 MPs would be one thing but these figures suggest an extinction level event- truly taxi-time. In such circumstances getting rid of Clegg must be advisable even if there was only a marginal chance that it would benefit the party.
Would commenters more experienced (i.e. older) than me care to comment on John Major vs Ed Miliband in weirdness stakes.
I'm always rather skeptical of how much revisionist history there is in terms of someone "looking prime ministerial".
My aunt was very close to John. He is a genuinely nice man, something that is all too rare in politics. He's humble and unassuming, and that came across to the voters with the soapbox tour. Ultimately, they may have regarded him as boring, but he was seen a decent and capable & they gave him the benefit of the doubt.
People say that EdM is nice on a personal level (I've never met him), but he comes across as a bit of a nerd. While his ideas could be good, he seems to be too enthused by the detail: PMs need to be big picture guys - Ed is a details man. I suspect that the voters will make that judgement on the day - do they want Ed facing off to Putin making the big calls for the country?
Mr. Owl, the Lib Dem proposals were completely ridiculous. One off 15 year terms are just crazy.
Mr. Omnium, I'd say recommend away, but a combination of immense poverty (even worse than I thought...) and having a largely unread Complete Works of Shakespeare means that I'm not really able to buy anything and am very likely to go on a Shakespeare binge once I finish my current book (the last of the many I got for Christmas).
There are Libraries though. They have Librarians too - often quite interestingly!
Although I see entirely that Shakespeare is great I'm not really up to that level yet. I'm not sure I'll ever be, but I do love the odd snippet here and there, plus I generally enjoy his work live. For once I'm sure that there is in fact something beyond me that will pay should I investigate.
Much of the world of art - Picasso's works for example - I simply don't get, or care about getting. I'm sure though that this is an unconscious effort on my part to be a 'literate' and not to care so much about being artistic.
Patrick O'Brien wrote a pretty fair bio of Picasso.
Mr. Lennon, how did the Pirate Party do? Did you seize a pleasing quantity of booty?
For the first time standing we did very creditably thank you for asking. Now looking to see what we can learn to take forward over the next year for standing in the GE and how we target that.
Alex Salmond's plans for an independent Scotland to join the EU within 18 months of a yes vote are "unachievable" and "not credible", a Commons committee has concluded. MPs on the Labour-dominated Scottish affairs select committee said the first minister ...
It would be interesting to see a sde-by-side comparison of the 35 chapters of the EU acquis communitaire with the changes David Cameron thinks he can get agreed by the rest of the EU in 18 months and those an newly independant Scotland would need agreed in the same timeframe - but I'm not holding my breath for the MSM or BBC to think of doing it.
It used to help if you were in your 50s or 60s. I remember in 1979 some TV people commenting that it was rare for someone so young (she was 53) becoming PM and Harold Wilson was a shocking 48 when he won the '64 election.
Comments
Where we disagree is what reward, if any, the Lib Dems are going to get for it. I think they will do the same with Parliament as they have with each set of local elections and will lose at least a third of their seats and maybe up to 40% like they did in the locals last week.
This is not fair, they deserve better but I think this is the way it will be. This narrows the window for a repeat stable coalition with either party after the election. Whilst I agree with the majority view on here that a hung Parliament is likely I am a lot less confident that a stable coalition will be possible.
ii) The hand of Fate, rather than the voters, elevated Major to the premiership. Before then, no-one had heard of him, so he had no need to "look prime ministerial" before the event.
Lab 17,520 (32.98%)
Con 15,981 (30.08%)
LD 6,565 (12.36%)
UKIP 5,878 (11.06%)
Green 3,651 (6.87%)
Ind 3,207 (6.04%)
Changes since 2010 locals:
Lab +6.67%
Con -1.91%
LD -17.12%
UKIP +11.06%
Green +4.21%
Ind +1.11%
Swing, Con to Lab: 4.29%
Labour needs a 6.21% swing to win Calder Valley from the Tories.
1. David Miliband has won Labour leadership contest.
2. Andy Murray won't win Wimbledon.
3. Nigel Farage's career is over.*
*This classic is a personal favourite of mine. It being made around six days prior to Ukip sweeping the board at the Euros.
"Picture yourself at a desk in the office..."
John Major did produce this great political line.
"Calling three of my colleagues, or a number of my colleagues, 'bastards' was absolutely unforgivable. My only excuse is that it was true."
Let's hope it's as good as your forecast last night for Labour to come third ;-)
http://t.co/XRvaZJDnTL
http://t.co/kgpj75T0LY
http://t.co/HYR8u9nOTc
GE 2015 still too close to call with Labour slight favourites for small majority / plurality.
It was that close, you see...
His voice was a bit odd and there was a greyness about him that Spitting Image (how I miss that program) made much of. But there was none of the intellectual pretensions or gobbledygook that Ed comes up with. So an odd choice in an odd time with a party that was no longer capable of providing functional government but not as weird.
If you go through it, O'Toole always seemed to get nominated against tough competition.
When will the dataset tables be released?
I know we're in the toilet but the debate is more what and how we should cut. I don't agree with cut all the budgets by X %. We should protect those things needed for our long term health like educating our kids and chop the hell out of crap like overseas aid, quangos, and something for nothing welfare.
Where is @TSE ? He reckons Lib Dems will win Hallam - And I have £40 on him there !
GE.I agree that the weekend results increase the chance of The Tories getting the largest share but it may not be enough to win enough seats for an overall majority.The other factor is the Lib Dem position.The majority of Lib seats have the Cons in second place,If the LD's share does not recover then there is the potential for a large number of Con gains.On the other hand if the LD's recover share it is likely to be from Labour and that could help in Tory/Lab marginals.
Although I see entirely that Shakespeare is great I'm not really up to that level yet. I'm not sure I'll ever be, but I do love the odd snippet here and there, plus I generally enjoy his work live. For once I'm sure that there is in fact something beyond me that will pay should I investigate.
Much of the world of art - Picasso's works for example - I simply don't get, or care about getting. I'm sure though that this is an unconscious effort on my part to be a 'literate' and not to care so much about being artistic.
Lab 42,507 (38.54%)
Con 29,706 (26.93%)
LD 13,837 (12.55%)
Green 12,974 (11.76%)
UKIP 4,937 (4.48%)
Changes since 2010 locals:
Lab +7.90%
Con -2.53%
LD -10.82%
Green +5.90%
UKIP +4.48%
Swing, Con to Lab: 5.72%
Labour need a swing of 5.29% to win Colne Valley from the Tories.
On another topic agree with Mr Eagles, Clegg will win in Hallam easily if he stands and it will never go Labour.
How realistic are these figures, if they are correct and credible then they are truly horrendous for the Lib Dems. However, there seems no reason particularly to doubt them- the Guardian would presumably have to be quite careful about attributing a poll to ICM if there was any doubt as to whether the poll was actually taken.
Surely the MPs must do something, anything. Loosing 20 MPs would be one thing but these figures suggest an extinction level event- truly taxi-time. In such circumstances getting rid of Clegg must be advisable even if there was only a marginal chance that it would benefit the party.
People say that EdM is nice on a personal level (I've never met him), but he comes across as a bit of a nerd. While his ideas could be good, he seems to be too enthused by the detail: PMs need to be big picture guys - Ed is a details man. I suspect that the voters will make that judgement on the day - do they want Ed facing off to Putin making the big calls for the country?