AFAIK BritainElects doesn't have any particular authority - it's a website, just like us, meh. In general, a weighted poll of how people will vote in a GE is MORE reliable than a by-election or a local election, because the likelihood to vote for the latter and who the voters will support is often quite different. That said, a sample of 500 is small and the MOE is substantial. The poll suggests that it's probable that at that moment the LibDems were behind, but all you can safely say is that they're at best likely to be level. -------------- The real question, posed by isam is, who would contract such a sample immediately after the elections. Also was ICM wise to take it on: It makes them look fools or worse?
In the Ashcroft data tables both Lib Dems and Greens are on 7% (not sure why the LDs have been adjusted for the top line figures - presumably turnout related) but both parties had 38 respondents supporting them.
The real question, posed by isam is, who would contract such a sample immediately after the elections. Also was ICM wise to take it on: It makes them look fools or worse?
Err, they didn't.
Fieldwork dates:
Cambridge: 4-8th April 2014 Redcar 17-19th April 2014 Wells 11-18th April 2014 Sheffield Hallam: 29th April-4th May 2014
The Independent understands that the poll was commissioned by Lord Oakeshott. The polling was carried out between April and 4 May - suggesting that the results were deliberately held back to inflict maximum damage on Mr Clegg’s leadership.
A Lib Dem source said: “There are not many people in the Liberal Democrats who are rich enough to conduct private polling and yet cheap enough to do it with such a pathetically small sample size. Matthew Oakeshott is both of those things.”
Some Lib Dem MPs and candidates believe the party needs to remove Mr Clegg to improve its chances in next year’s general election. There is no suggestion that Mr Cable was aware of the poll in advance of its publication.
A Lib Dem MP, who declined to be named, added: “Matthew is trying to live out his political fantasies vicariously through Vince.
“He has no regard for the party, no respect for the councillors and activists out there fighting for votes, and no awareness of how damaging this is for Vince. The £15,000 or £20,000 he spent on polling could have got Graham Watson over the line in the South West.”
A Lib Dem source said: “There are not many people in the Liberal Democrats who are rich enough to conduct private polling and yet cheap enough to do it with such a pathetically small sample size. Matthew Oakeshott is both of those things.”
The political class have imported poverty into the cities on a massive scale which is giving Lab increasing electoral dominance. The Con leadership colludes with this for cheap labour reasons although ultimately it is harmful to the vast majortiy of their voters. No doubt the City brings a lot of money into London but the majority of London isn't prosperous at all. It's the opposite and getting poorer. That's the reason for Lab success in London - importing poverty. The only people who benefit from this are the private sector rich of the City and the public sector rich like the BBC who can now have lots of cheap servants.
Spot on. I remember when London streets were literally paved with gold and everyone voted Tory. It was certainly that way in solid blue Kentish Town where I grew up. The wealth was unimaginable to those grovelling a living there now. Labour changed it all when they rigged the 1997 election. What I never understood, though, was why so many people chose to leave London when it was so prosperous back in the day and so many people choose to live there now when it is so poor. I blame the BBC and Bankstas.
You always trot out this line Southam, but what you seem to fail to appreciate is that other countries in northern Europe and the Anglosphere that have had low immigration or predominantly skilled immigration have had increasingly middle class societies. Finland, Switzerland, Canada etc have managed to gentrify on a national basis. Meanwhile the huge economic improvement we have seen since the 1980s has failed to do this in the UK, even in the booming capital. Parts of the place, like Wembley, seem to have notably deteriorated. Swathes of south London now have big issues with knife and gun crime that never existed on this scale. Hospitals now need to watch out for female genital mutilation, previously unknown in this country. This is entirely due to immigration.
The real question, posed by isam is, who would contract such a sample immediately after the elections. Also was ICM wise to take it on: It makes them look fools or worse?
Err, they didn't.
Fieldwork dates:
Cambridge: 4-8th April 2014 Redcar 17-19th April 2014 Wells 11-18th April 2014 Sheffield Hallam: 29th April-4th May 2014
Still seems a bit of a waste of money to me seeing as an actual election was so close
Still seems a bit of a waste of money to me seeing as an actual election was so close
Maybe the mystery poll-commissioning lord was hoping to get a result which showed that switching to Vince would turn the seats from lost causes into sure-fire LibDem holds.
Re people saying the Local Election results show Clegg will easily win Hallam:
Hasn't it always been the case that people vote differently in Locals to a GE?
Just as many people who vote UKIP in the Euros will vote Con or Lab in a GE, it has long been a pattern that many who vote LD in Locals will vote Con or Lab in a GE.
Indeed, I think I recall on Thursday night the BBC said the LDs got a "National share" of 28% in the 2010 Locals. Yet they only got 24% in the GE on the same day.
So many people who supported their local LD councillor in Hallam on Thursday may not vote for Clegg next year.
Traditionally the advice has been to keep at least some of the portfolio in bonds rather than shares, but they are a bit tricky at the moment because of the expectation that interest rates will rise (which means the capital value of existing bonds, stuck on low interest rates, will fall).
That's priced in, no? And if interest rates don't raise as expected, the price will increase. You'll get better risk-adjusted returns with a small sample of bonds in there.
"Labour’s lead has narrowed to two points in the Ashcroft National Poll conducted between 23 and 25 May. The finale of the Euro election campaign, together with the coverage of UKIP’s victory, has helped Nigel Farage’s party to 17% in my survey, with the Conservatives unchanged from last week on 29%, Labour down four points on 31%, and the Lib Dems down one on 8%. The UKIP share is the highest yet recorded in a national telephone poll.
As I found in the post-Euro election survey I conducted after the polls had closed on Thursday, only half of those who voted UKIP said they expected to do the same at the general election. One fifth said they would probably end up voting Conservative, one in ten said they would go to Labour and another 14% said they did not know what they would do.....
It is a central part of the Conservative economic message that the government has cut the deficit by more than a third since taking office in 2010. The clear implication is that there are more cuts to come.
A sizeable minority of voters accept this: 41% agreed with the statement “the national economy is not yet fully fixed, so we will need to continue with austerity and cuts in government spending over the next five years.” Nearly seven in ten Tories and a majority of Lib Dems thought so, as did one fifth of Labour supporters."
"A significant microcosm of both the problem and the solution is London - where, significantly, UKIP resonated less and performed less well than elsewhere.
Part of the explanation is that globalisation - which gives many a sense that they have little direct control over their economic destiny - enriches London.
Much of the rest of the UK sees globalisation and its manifestations - such as immigration - as disempowering, impoverishing and a threat. Whereas for Londoners, globalisation is an economic competition they are apparently winning."
The political class have imported poverty into the cities on a massive scale which is giving Lab increasing electoral dominance. The Con leadership colludes with this for cheap labour reasons although ultimately it is harmful to the vast majortiy of their voters.
No doubt the City brings a lot of money into London but the majority of London isn't prosperous at all. It's the opposite and getting poorer. That's the reason for Lab success in London - importing poverty.
The only people who benefit from this are the private sector rich of the City and the public sector rich like the BBC who can now have lots of cheap servants.
Inner London's GDP per head is (IIRC) twice that of the UK, but that reflects the immense wealth of a minority of super-rich people, not the standard of living of the majority.
Just as much as ethnicity, it's the huge gap between rich and poor that drives Labour's support in London.
Yes, and the consequences of that huge gap is gradually driving out everyone in the middle.
To me the big story of the elections was the Tories being squeezed out of London. I don't see how they hope to survive if they betray the interests of the majority of their voters to enrich a handful of oligarchs.
There are a couple of conclusions that I draw from this:
UKIP still hurt the Tories more but only just - the corollary of this is UKIP decline will likely boost both Labour and Conservative.
The Greens are 'stealing' Lib Dem defectors from Labour and are another potential source of votes for Labour as we approach the GE.
The biggest problem the Conservatives had with going into a coalition with the LibDems, is that it coalesced the opposition into Labour alone. This gave an advantage to Labour.
Now we are seeing the opposition splitting again, but now into UKIP and Green. This will help the Tories.
I don't have the last few years' LD NEVS, and of course UKIP only starts to feature recently, as distinct from the Others.
Columns are Con, Lab, LD, Oths. You will have of course to reverse the sign of the (calculated) leads, depending on who was in Opposition...
I ignore the locals which were held on the same day as the GE for obvious reasons. Also I omit the 1992 locals, held only a few weeks after the GE, when the Tories were still clearly benefiting from an afterglow effect.
Regression modelling for time series data like these, particularly relating to differences is not a statistically robust approach, so your r2 isn't telling you much. Even if you went for something a bit fancier; a non-linear approach like GLM, or something more robust like least squares, you are on a sticky wicket. Can't see the other suggestion of Logistic helping much either. Something more explicitly designed for timer series like ARIMA would be better.
Mind you, that is going to give you, give or take, the same answer.
A Lib Dem source said: “There are not many people in the Liberal Democrats who are rich enough to conduct private polling and yet cheap enough to do it with such a pathetically small sample size. Matthew Oakeshott is both of those things.”
That's priced in, no? And if interest rates don't raise as expected, the price will increase. You'll get better risk-adjusted returns with a small sample of bonds in there.
No, I don't think it is priced in, because the combination of QE, near-zero base rates, and risk aversion is keeping yields artificially low, at least for the safer government and quasi-government bonds. That's not to say that bonds are necessarily a bad idea as part of an overall portfolio, but it does make them 'tricky'; the problem is that trying to incorporate bonds into a portfolio in these conditions is currently particularly hard, because the risk/reward ratio is oddly skewed according to the bond's duration.
That means that, if you want to invest in bonds, it's not obvious that a tracker fund is the best approach at the moment, but if you go to an actively-managed bond fund, charges eat up a lot of your expected return. For a novice investor, my view is that it's too hard to get right.
@Socrates - You always trot out this line Southam, but what you seem to fail to appreciate is that other countries in northern Europe and the Anglosphere that have had low immigration or predominantly skilled immigration have had increasingly middle class societies. Finland, Switzerland, Canada etc have managed to gentrify on a national basis. Meanwhile the huge economic improvement we have seen since the 1980s has failed to do this in the UK, even in the booming capital. Parts of the place, like Wembley, seem to have notably deteriorated. Swathes of south London now have big issues with knife and gun crime that never existed on this scale. Hospitals now need to watch out for female genital mutilation, previously unknown in this country. This is entirely due to immigration.
I am not arguing about the negative effects of immigration, I am arguing with MrJones's absurd suggestion that London is a poorer city than it once was and that this is as a consequence of deliberate decision-making. There may be parts of Wembley that have deteriorated. The corollary of that is that much of inner London has dramatically improved. The comparison between where I grew up - Kentish Town, Tufnell Park, Camden Town, Holloway, Islington, Stoke Newington, Crouch End, Hornsey and Finsbury Park - between then and now is very marked, and all for the better. London's population was in decline for much of the post-war period up until the 1980s and there was a reason for that - it was dirty, unhealthy and decrepit. Indeed, those of us who remember the City and the West End back in the late 70s and early 80s see something far grander, far cleaner and far more prosperous than it once was. That's why people want to live in London. I am in our office in London Bridge today. About 80% of the people we employ were born in the UK. Looking around I can see one person apart from me who was born in London. The rest are immigrants from elsewhere.
That's priced in, no? And if interest rates don't raise as expected, the price will increase. You'll get better risk-adjusted returns with a small sample of bonds in there.
No, I don't think it is priced in, because the combination of QE, near-zero base rates, and risk aversion is keeping yields artificially low, at least for the safer government and quasi-government bonds. That's not to say that bonds are necessarily a bad idea as part of an overall portfolio, but it does make them 'tricky'; the problem is that trying to incorporate bonds into a portfolio in these conditions is currently particularly hard, because the risk/reward ratio is oddly skewed according to the bond's duration.
That means that, if you want to invest in bonds, it's not obvious that a tracker fund is the best approach at the moment, but if you go to an actively-managed bond fund, charges eat up a lot of your expected return. For a novice investor, my view is that it's too hard to get right.
short duration bonds. I also like illiquid issues with good covenants that I plan to hold to maturity (basically retail issues that people have forgotton about).
"Without London, Labour could well have been 2nd in the local elections and third in the European elections."
...and without the South-East constituency Labour would have topped the polls in the Euros and been even further ahead in the Locals."
yeah but it's not just London vs SE it's London vs SE, SW, EM, WM, East etc.
"To put this all in perspective, in 1989 the Greens got well over half what UKIP got last week. How seismic was that?"
Very - zillions of pounds worth of Green-related stuff followed.
"p.s. Just to link the two topics of this thread. I think the reason EdM was chosen as Labour leader was because, discounting the obvious non-starter (Diane Abbot), he was the most obvious not-Blair candidate."
I still think EMili was meant to split Balls' vote and let DMili through but it went wrong.
It's hard to square the notion that London is a poorer city when its very,very difficult to buy a property in any london borough, even a studio flat, for less than 180,000.
Guido Fawkes @GuidoFawkes · 40 secs When 2/5 of party loyalists want rid of you it is time for a brandy and the revolver in the library. Except if they are weirdie beardies.
I personally do think Clegg should go. The lib dems have nothing to lose.
Ironically this would probably be a good thing for Cameron and the tories...
It's hard to square the notion that London is a poorer city when its very,very difficult to buy a property in any london borough, even a studio flat, for less than 180,000.
@Socrates - You always trot out this line Southam, but what you seem to fail to appreciate is that other countries in northern Europe and the Anglosphere that have had low immigration or predominantly skilled immigration have had increasingly middle class societies. Finland, Switzerland, Canada etc have managed to gentrify on a national basis. Meanwhile the huge economic improvement we have seen since the 1980s has failed to do this in the UK, even in the booming capital. Parts of the place, like Wembley, seem to have notably deteriorated. Swathes of south London now have big issues with knife and gun crime that never existed on this scale. Hospitals now need to watch out for female genital mutilation, previously unknown in this country. This is entirely due to immigration.
I am not arguing about the negative effects of immigration, I am arguing with MrJones's absurd suggestion that London is a poorer city than it once was and that this is as a consequence of deliberate decision-making. There may be parts of Wembley that have deteriorated. The corollary of that is that much of inner London has dramatically improved. The comparison between where I grew up - Kentish Town, Tufnell Park, Camden Town, Holloway, Islington, Stoke Newington, Crouch End, Hornsey and Finsbury Park - between then and now is very marked, and all for the better. London's population was in decline for much of the post-war period up until the 1980s and there was a reason for that - it was dirty, unhealthy and decrepit. Indeed, those of us who remember the City and the West End back in the late 70s and early 80s see something far grander, far cleaner and far more prosperous than it once was. That's why people want to live in London. I am in our office in London Bridge today. About 80% of the people we employ were born in the UK. Looking around I can see one person apart from me who was born in London. The rest are immigrants from elsewhere.
People can choose their option. London and the other big cities are trending to complete dominance by Labour because:
a) they're rich, prosperous multiculti and happy
or
b) the political class have been importing poverty on a massive scale and so far it's been concentrated in the cities
short duration bonds. I also like illiquid issues with good covenants that I plan to hold to maturity (basically retail issues that people have forgotton about).
Yes, but you really need to know what you are doing to hold bonds directly, and have a big enough portfolio to be able to get diversification. So definitely not for the novice investing a relatively modest sum.
Alternatively you can invest in something like the Jupiter Strategic Bond fund, and leave it to the managers to do all the tricky analysis of duration, creditworthiness and exchange-rate risk, but then you are hit by the charges on what is already a less-than-stellar expected return. That might still be worthwhile as a small part of the portfolio, though.
It's hard to square the notion that London is a poorer city when its very,very difficult to buy a property in any london borough, even a studio flat, for less than 180,000.
London is not a poorer city. It is a much richer city than it was. But as has always been the case it does have areas in which there is extreme poverty. Some of these are the same as they have always been. Others are new. But areas that were once poor no longer are. There was never and there is not a deliberate policy to impoverish London.
Regression modelling for time series data like these, particularly relating to differences is not a statistically robust approach, so your r2 isn't telling you much. Even if you went for something a bit fancier; a non-linear approach like GLM, or something more robust like least squares, you are on a sticky wicket. Can't see the other suggestion of Logistic helping much either. Something more explicitly designed for timer series like ARIMA would be better.
Mind you, that is going to give you, give or take, the same answer.
I agree the r2 isn't telling us much. Now I have Rob's data I'll crunch some numbers and let you know what the significance of the F-stats and t-stats are on any regressions.
Laura Kuenssberg @bbclaurak 1m And UKIP's just suspended one of its newly elected councillors - Dave Small accused of racism and homophobia
Well strike me pink. Whoever would have imagined that one of UKIP's chosen representatives should have given rise to that sort of problem?
The media and political class' moral double standards over things like the shenanigans in Tower Hamlets dilutes these attacks and highlights the political and media class' double standards.
@Socrates - You always trot out this line Southam, but what you seem to fail to appreciate is that other countries in northern Europe and the Anglosphere that have had low immigration or predominantly skilled immigration have had increasingly middle class societies. Finland, Switzerland, Canada etc have managed to gentrify on a national basis. Meanwhile the huge economic improvement we have seen since the 1980s has failed to do this in the UK, even in the booming capital. Parts of the place, like Wembley, seem to have notably deteriorated. Swathes of south London now have big issues with knife and gun crime that never existed on this scale. Hospitals now need to watch out for female genital mutilation, previously unknown in this country. This is entirely due to immigration.
I am not arguing about the negative effects of immigration, I am arguing with MrJones's absurd suggestion that London is a poorer city than it once was and that this is as a consequence of deliberate decision-making. There may be parts of Wembley that have deteriorated. The corollary of that is that much of inner London has dramatically improved. The comparison between where I grew up - Kentish Town, Tufnell Park, Camden Town, Holloway, Islington, Stoke Newington, Crouch End, Hornsey and Finsbury Park - between then and now is very marked, and all for the better. London's population was in decline for much of the post-war period up until the 1980s and there was a reason for that - it was dirty, unhealthy and decrepit. Indeed, those of us who remember the City and the West End back in the late 70s and early 80s see something far grander, far cleaner and far more prosperous than it once was. That's why people want to live in London. I am in our office in London Bridge today. About 80% of the people we employ were born in the UK. Looking around I can see one person apart from me who was born in London. The rest are immigrants from elsewhere.
People can choose their option. London and the other big cities are trending to complete dominance by Labour because:
a) they're rich, prosperous multiculti and happy
or
b) the political class have been importing poverty on a massive scale and so far it's been concentrated in the cities
Actually a bit of both i guess. (a) for the upper middle class and (b) for the rest
If Rod gives me his data set I'll see what I can do....
:-)
I don't have the last few years' LD NEVS, and of course UKIP only starts to feature recently, as distinct from the Others.
Columns are Con, Lab, LD, Oths. You will have of course to reverse the sign of the (calculated) leads, depending on who was in Opposition...
I ignore the locals which were held on the same day as the GE for obvious reasons. Also I omit the 1992 locals, held only a few weeks after the GE, when the Tories were still clearly benefiting from an afterglow effect.
@Socrates - You always trot out this line Southam, but what you seem to fail to appreciate is that other countries in northern Europe and the Anglosphere that have had low immigration or predominantly skilled immigration have had increasingly middle class societies. Finland, Switzerland, Canada etc have managed to gentrify on a national basis. Meanwhile the huge economic improvement we have seen since the 1980s has failed to do this in the UK, even in the booming capital. Parts of the place, like Wembley, seem to have notably deteriorated. Swathes of south London now have big issues with knife and gun crime that never existed on this scale. Hospitals now need to watch out for female genital mutilation, previously unknown in this country. This is entirely due to immigration.
I am not arguing about the negative effects of immigration, I am arguing with MrJones's absurd suggestion that London is a poorer city than it once was and that this is as a consequence of deliberate decision-making. There may be parts of Wembley that have deteriorated. The corollary of that is that much of inner London has dramatically improved. The comparison between where I grew up - Kentish Town, Tufnell Park, Camden Town, Holloway, Islington, Stoke Newington, Crouch End, Hornsey and Finsbury Park - between then and now is very marked, and all for the better. London's population was in decline for much of the post-war period up until the 1980s and there was a reason for that - it was dirty, unhealthy and decrepit. Indeed, those of us who remember the City and the West End back in the late 70s and early 80s see something far grander, far cleaner and far more prosperous than it once was. That's why people want to live in London. I am in our office in London Bridge today. About 80% of the people we employ were born in the UK. Looking around I can see one person apart from me who was born in London. The rest are immigrants from elsewhere.
People can choose their option. London and the other big cities are trending to complete dominance by Labour because:
a) they're rich, prosperous multiculti and happy
or
b) the political class have been importing poverty on a massive scale and so far it's been concentrated in the cities
Of course. Those who wish to believe in conspiracies that involve Bankstas, the EU and the BBC flooding Somerset with water and London with the poverty stricken are perfectly free to do so.
Regression modelling for time series data like these, particularly relating to differences is not a statistically robust approach, so your r2 isn't telling you much. Even if you went for something a bit fancier; a non-linear approach like GLM, or something more robust like least squares, you are on a sticky wicket. Can't see the other suggestion of Logistic helping much either. Something more explicitly designed for timer series like ARIMA would be better.
Mind you, that is going to give you, give or take, the same answer.
I agree the r2 isn't telling us much. Now I have Rob's data I'll crunch some numbers and let you know what the significance of the F-stats and t-stats are on any regressions.
@Socrates - You always trot out this line Southam, but what you seem to fail to appreciate is that other countries in northern Europe and the Anglosphere that have had low immigration or predominantly skilled immigration have had increasingly middle class societies. Finland, Switzerland, Canada etc have managed to gentrify on a national basis. Meanwhile the huge economic improvement we have seen since the 1980s has failed to do this in the UK, even in the booming capital. Parts of the place, like Wembley, seem to have notably deteriorated. Swathes of south London now have big issues with knife and gun crime that never existed on this scale. Hospitals now need to watch out for female genital mutilation, previously unknown in this country. This is entirely due to immigration.
I am not arguing about the negative effects of immigration, I am arguing with MrJones's absurd suggestion that London is a poorer city than it once was and that this is as a consequence of deliberate decision-making. There may be parts of Wembley that have deteriorated. The corollary of that is that much of inner London has dramatically improved. The comparison between where I grew up - Kentish Town, Tufnell Park, Camden Town, Holloway, Islington, Stoke Newington, Crouch End, Hornsey and Finsbury Park - between then and now is very marked, and all for the better. London's population was in decline for much of the post-war period up until the 1980s and there was a reason for that - it was dirty, unhealthy and decrepit. Indeed, those of us who remember the City and the West End back in the late 70s and early 80s see something far grander, far cleaner and far more prosperous than it once was. That's why people want to live in London. I am in our office in London Bridge today. About 80% of the people we employ were born in the UK. Looking around I can see one person apart from me who was born in London. The rest are immigrants from elsewhere.
People can choose their option. London and the other big cities are trending to complete dominance by Labour because:
a) they're rich, prosperous multiculti and happy
or
b) the political class have been importing poverty on a massive scale and so far it's been concentrated in the cities
Of course. Those who wish to believe in conspiracies that involve Bankstas, the EU and the BBC flooding Somerset with water and London with the poverty stricken are perfectly free to do so.
The Tories are being squeezed out of London because the majority of London is getting so prosperous?
If Rod gives me his data set I'll see what I can do....
:-)
I don't have the last few years' LD NEVS, and of course UKIP only starts to feature recently, as distinct from the Others.
Columns are Con, Lab, LD, Oths. You will have of course to reverse the sign of the (calculated) leads, depending on who was in Opposition...
I ignore the locals which were held on the same day as the GE for obvious reasons. Also I omit the 1992 locals, held only a few weeks after the GE, when the Tories were still clearly benefiting from an afterglow effect.
Unenthusiastic response from AS, non-committal one from me.
A defeat for Anna Soubry would be a gain for the Right.
Not if Nick wins!
On immigration and Europe, I've not detected a significant difference between AS's position and mine, or indeed my predecessor Sir Jim Lester - Broxtowe and its geographic predecessor has had strongly pro-EU MPs for the last 40 years, for no particular reason except the vagaries of selections (and perhaps Ken Clarke's influence in the area as far as the Tories go).
i might be dismayed in a year's time, as The Watcher says, but for now I'm just enjoying the prospect of a real three-cornered fight - it'd be fun.
People can choose their option. London and the other big cities are trending to complete dominance by Labour because:
a) they're rich, prosperous multiculti and happy
or
b) the political class have been importing poverty on a massive scale and so far it's been concentrated in the cities
In some ways I'm impressed that even after the BNP got absolutely trounced last week you're still plugging away anyway. More power to you.
The Tories are being squeezed out of London because the majority of London are getting more prosperous?
I'll have whatever you're having.
You've no answer because this spin that the Tories are being squeezed out of London because of growing prosperity** is obvious nonsense.
**except at the top
I have no answer because I dont usually engage with conspiracy theory stuff unless it's particularly entertaining like Tap's. I broke cover today simply to commend you for keeping going when so many in your former party have given up for now.
People can choose their option. London and the other big cities are trending to complete dominance by Labour because:
a) they're rich, prosperous multiculti and happy
or
b) the political class have been importing poverty on a massive scale and so far it's been concentrated in the cities
In some ways I'm impressed that even after the BNP got absolutely trounced last week you're still plugging away anyway. More power to you.
The Tories are being squeezed out of London because the majority of London are getting more prosperous?
I'll have whatever you're having.
You've no answer because this spin that the Tories are being squeezed out of London because of growing prosperity** is obvious nonsense.
**except at the top
I have no answer because I dont usually engage with conspiracy theory stuff unless it's particularly entertaining like Tap's. I broke cover today simply to commend you for keeping going when so many in your former party have given up for now.
The main point is the spin that Lab are becoming dominant in London because of prosperity is a joke.
It's hard to square the notion that London is a poorer city when its very,very difficult to buy a property in any london borough, even a studio flat, for less than 180,000.
London is not a poorer city. It is a much richer city than it was. But as has always been the case it does have areas in which there is extreme poverty. Some of these are the same as they have always been. Others are new. But areas that were once poor no longer are. There was never and there is not a deliberate policy to impoverish London.
You are correct of course London has always been a city with poor and rich areas. Over the decades some of these have changed and that will continue to happen. Taken as a whole the aggregate wealth of London is now much higher than it was when I was growing up there, but the disparities in wealth are also so much greater. So what?
I notice that neither of us chose to live there. You, I believe from your posts on here, chose to live in Warwickshire and I am in Sussex.
@MrJones - The Tory vote has declined across the country over the last 20 years. Jus as the Labour vote has. The vote Labour got in London last Thursday was lower than its vote there in the GLA election of 2012 and in the GLC election of 1981.
Great article Rod. The value is still betting on a hung parliament, IMHO - it covers a huge seat range with odds still better than evens - but I'll be following your analysis very carefully over the next 11 months.
It's hard to square the notion that London is a poorer city when its very,very difficult to buy a property in any london borough, even a studio flat, for less than 180,000.
London is not a poorer city. It is a much richer city than it was. But as has always been the case it does have areas in which there is extreme poverty. Some of these are the same as they have always been. Others are new. But areas that were once poor no longer are. There was never and there is not a deliberate policy to impoverish London.
You are correct of course London has always been a city with poor and rich areas. Over the decades some of these have changed and that will continue to happen. Taken as a whole the aggregate wealth of London is now much higher than it was when I was growing up there, but the disparities in wealth are also so much greater. So what?
I notice that neither of us chose to live there. You, I believe from your posts on here, chose to live in Warwickshire and I am in Sussex.
Yup, my wife is from Warwickshire and we moved up there so she could be close to her parents.
Wildly O/T: I've been the subject of a mysterious sting and can't work out who benefits. I have BT broadband, which includes access to BT's wifi hotspots. BT's wifi partner Fon informed my email addresss that they'd charged me £21 "to my credit card" to upgrade me to cheap global access to wifi hotspots. I might in principle be up for that, but I've not actually ordered it. I have more than one card, so I asked them for details and told them the order wasn't from me and could they tell me the card so I could investigate the security breach? They said they'd refund the payment to my card, but as it was at one remove they didn't know what my card was.
Wtf? First, how does someone benefit (except Fon, who I presume are not villains) by charging a random person to upgrade? Second, how does Fon refund the money without knowing what the card is?
Great article Rod. The value is still betting on a hung parliament, IMHO - it covers a huge seat range with odds still better than evens - but I'll be following your analysis very carefully over the next 11 months.
Lay Lab Maj looks the best bet out there - they're barely getting a majority on current polling.
Wtf? First, how does someone benefit (except Fon, who I presume are not villains) by charging a random person to upgrade? Second, how does Fon refund the money without knowing what the card is?
Has the £21 actually been charged to your card? It sounds more like the upgrade has been applied to the wrong account.
People can choose their option. London and the other big cities are trending to complete dominance by Labour because:
a) they're rich, prosperous multiculti and happy
or
b) the political class have been importing poverty on a massive scale and so far it's been concentrated in the cities
In some ways I'm impressed that even after the BNP got absolutely trounced last week you're still plugging away anyway. More power to you.
The Tories are being squeezed out of London because the majority of London are getting more prosperous?
I'll have whatever you're having.
You've no answer because this spin that the Tories are being squeezed out of London because of growing prosperity** is obvious nonsense.
**except at the top
I would have thought that the middle-earning families who want to own their own home are being squeezed out of London is self-evident (best part of £200K for a flat someone said up-thread). Such people are a significant chunk of the Conservative vote, so perhaps the idea is not so preposterous.
A few months ago someone on here linked to a map which was colour coded by home ownership-type (owned, privately rented, social housing). Unfortunately I can't find it now, ifanyone still has the link please could they share it.
I'm getting this out of Excel (for the average NEV versus GE)
Coefficients Standard Error t Stat P-value Intercept -0.12087037 0.012193935 -9.912334795 6.09009E-05 X Variable 1 1.485459093 0.134602505 11.03589482 3.29308E-05
df SS MS F Significance F Regression 1 0.070769437 0.070769437 121.7909744 3.29308E-05
The idea that London hasn't gentrified since the 1980s is possibly the most bonkers suggestion on pb this year.
London as a whole has gentrified?
If you need to ask the question, you're not going to believe what is an incredibly obvious answer.
I know the answer. Look in the backstreets.
The backstreets of much of London are now occupied by yuppies. It's not so long ago that mews were the second rate accommodation lived in by those who couldn't afford proper houses. The same is happening now over a much wider area. 30 years ago, no one at all lived in the backstreets of Shoreditch and Hoxton. Inner east London (from Brick Lane to Bethnal Green to Hackney to Dalston to Leyton) is gentrifying at a dizzying speed. Our intrepid reporter from the trenches of NW1 has confirmed the same for that area. Longstanding residents of Brixton are complaining that the cultural heritage of that area is being lost with gentrification.
You're missing one of the great global success stories of the last few decades. People come from right round the world to get richer in London. And not just from poorer countries. London is France's sixth biggest city. It's Sweden's fourth biggest city. I'm sure I could go round other first world countries with similar statistics.
I could see how there is a big class of strivers, grads on first/second jobs etc maybe earning 30/50k, who feel they have zero chance of getting somewhere in life given the price of property etc.
I could see how they might support ed, who is at least sympathetic to their cause (even if rent controls might not help them).
"Some dramatic and highly unexpected changes in vote share took place in wards which Rahman’s Labour opponents had thought completely safe for them. I will be looking more closely at some of these numbers in the days ahead."
"Some dramatic and highly unexpected changes in vote share took place in wards which Rahman’s Labour opponents had thought completely safe for them. I will be looking more closely at some of these numbers in the days ahead."
Labour chose to lose? Thank you Labour! A very profitable decision that was too. Mind you they almost ended up winning, presumably Gilligan thinks that would have been very embarrassing for them.
I have more than one card, so I asked them for details and told them the order wasn't from me and could they tell me the card so I could investigate the security breach?
Just to eliminate one possibility, how did you contact Fon and what makes you confident that it was really Fon who you were talking to?
Comments
Yes but the betting markets arent under or over 17% are they?
You have to add on 1% to UKIPs EU score for AIFE
People have been saying what you just said for the last year
A year ago UKIP to poll less than 10% was 1/6 with Ladbrokes, now it is 11/10
UKIP to win a seat at the GE was 5/2 now its 4/6
UKIP to outpoll the Cons in the EUros was 11/10 a year ago, it was 1/7 last week
There is no argument in betting terms that UKIP opposing has been a route to the poorhouse in the last 12 months
AFAIK BritainElects doesn't have any particular authority - it's a website, just like us, meh. In general, a weighted poll of how people will vote in a GE is MORE reliable than a by-election or a local election, because the likelihood to vote for the latter and who the voters will support is often quite different. That said, a sample of 500 is small and the MOE is substantial. The poll suggests that it's probable that at that moment the LibDems were behind, but all you can safely say is that they're at best likely to be level.
--------------
The real question, posed by isam is, who would contract such a sample immediately after the elections. Also was ICM wise to take it on: It makes them look fools or worse?
For the Greens and the Lib Dems...
http://www.nottinghampost.com/Nigel-Farage-8217-s-UKIP-target-Broxtowe-seat/story-21147345-detail/story.html
Unenthusiastic response from AS, non-committal one from me.
http://www.libdemvoice.org/breaking-news-matthew-oakeshott-commissioned-the-guardian-poll-40410.html
As some of us suggested this a.m......
18% of swing voters say they are moving "towards" Cons, 58% away. Labour 22-53, Lib Dems 10-63(!), UKIP 34-44
Fieldwork dates:
Cambridge: 4-8th April 2014
Redcar 17-19th April 2014
Wells 11-18th April 2014
Sheffield Hallam: 29th April-4th May 2014
The Independent understands that the poll was commissioned by Lord Oakeshott. The polling was carried out between April and 4 May - suggesting that the results were deliberately held back to inflict maximum damage on Mr Clegg’s leadership.
A Lib Dem source said: “There are not many people in the Liberal Democrats who are rich enough to conduct private polling and yet cheap enough to do it with such a pathetically small sample size. Matthew Oakeshott is both of those things.”
Some Lib Dem MPs and candidates believe the party needs to remove Mr Clegg to improve its chances in next year’s general election. There is no suggestion that Mr Cable was aware of the poll in advance of its publication.
A Lib Dem MP, who declined to be named, added: “Matthew is trying to live out his political fantasies vicariously through Vince.
“He has no regard for the party, no respect for the councillors and activists out there fighting for votes, and no awareness of how damaging this is for Vince. The £15,000 or £20,000 he spent on polling could have got Graham Watson over the line in the South West.”
A Lib Dem source said: “There are not many people in the Liberal Democrats who are rich enough to conduct private polling and yet cheap enough to do it with such a pathetically small sample size. Matthew Oakeshott is both of those things.”
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/vince-cable-allies-accused-of-plotting-to-bring-down-nick-clegg-9440819.html
Still seems a bit of a waste of money to me seeing as an actual election was so close
If you followed my tip on UKIP GE% betting from last year then you'd be in decent shape.
http://www1.politicalbetting.com/index.php/archives/2013/03/03/corporeal-asks-are-the-kippers-a-red-herring/
Hasn't it always been the case that people vote differently in Locals to a GE?
Just as many people who vote UKIP in the Euros will vote Con or Lab in a GE, it has long been a pattern that many who vote LD in Locals will vote Con or Lab in a GE.
Indeed, I think I recall on Thursday night the BBC said the LDs got a "National share" of 28% in the 2010 Locals. Yet they only got 24% in the GE on the same day.
So many people who supported their local LD councillor in Hallam on Thursday may not vote for Clegg next year.
Con 2010 (Con 69%, UKIP 18%, Lab 5%, Greens 3%)
Lab 2010 (Lab 75%, UKIP 13%, Con 4%, Greens 2%)
LD 2010 (LD 32%, Lab 24%, Greens 16%, Con 11%, UKIP 10%)
There are a couple of conclusions that I draw from this:
UKIP still hurt the Tories more but only just - the corollary of this is UKIP decline will likely boost both Labour and Conservative.
The Greens are 'stealing' Lib Dem defectors from Labour and are another potential source of votes for Labour as we approach the GE.
"Labour’s lead has narrowed to two points in the Ashcroft National Poll conducted between 23 and 25 May. The finale of the Euro election campaign, together with the coverage of UKIP’s victory, has helped Nigel Farage’s party to 17% in my survey, with the Conservatives unchanged from last week on 29%, Labour down four points on 31%, and the Lib Dems down one on 8%. The UKIP share is the highest yet recorded in a national telephone poll.
As I found in the post-Euro election survey I conducted after the polls had closed on Thursday, only half of those who voted UKIP said they expected to do the same at the general election. One fifth said they would probably end up voting Conservative, one in ten said they would go to Labour and another 14% said they did not know what they would do.....
It is a central part of the Conservative economic message that the government has cut the deficit by more than a third since taking office in 2010. The clear implication is that there are more cuts to come.
A sizeable minority of voters accept this: 41% agreed with the statement “the national economy is not yet fully fixed, so we will need to continue with austerity and cuts in government spending over the next five years.” Nearly seven in ten Tories and a majority of Lib Dems thought so, as did one fifth of Labour supporters."
http://lordashcroftpolls.com/2014/05/ashcroft-national-poll-con-29-lab-31-lib-dem-8-ukip-17/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=ashcroft-national-poll-con-29-lab-31-lib-dem-8-ukip-17&utm_source=Lord+Ashcroft+Polls&utm_campaign=c1b59d78f8-RSS_EMAIL_CAMPAIGN&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_b70c7aec0a-c1b59d78f8-71623245
To me the big story of the elections was the Tories being squeezed out of London. I don't see how they hope to survive if they betray the interests of the majority of their voters to enrich a handful of oligarchs.
The biggest problem the Conservatives had with going into a coalition with the LibDems, is that it coalesced the opposition into Labour alone. This gave an advantage to Labour.
Now we are seeing the opposition splitting again, but now into UKIP and Green. This will help the Tories.
From what Nick has posted about his constituency, it doesn't seem to be the 'left behind' type of place that UKIP say they are looking to target.
1976 43% 27% 12% 18%
1977 49% 28% 7% 16%
1978 45% 39% 7% 9%
1979GE 45% 38% 14% 3%
1980 40% 42% 13% 5%
1981 38% 41% 17% 4%
1982 40% 29% 27% 4%
1983 39% 36% 20% 5%
1983GE 43% 28% 26% 3%
1984 38% 37% 21% 4%
1985 32% 39% 26% 3%
1986 34% 37% 26% 3%
1987 38% 32% 27% 3%
1987GE 43% 31% 23% 3%
1988 39% 38% 18% 5%
1989 36% 42% 19% 3%
1990 33% 44% 17% 6%
1991 35% 38% 22% 5%
1992GE 43% 35% 18% 4%
1993 31% 39% 25% 5%
1994 28% 40% 27% 5%
1995 25% 47% 23% 5%
1996 29% 43% 24% 4%
1997GE 31% 44% 17% 8%
1998 33% 37% 25% 5%
1999 34% 36% 25% 5%
2000 38% 30% 26% 6%
2001GE 33% 42% 19% 6%
2002 34% 33% 25% 8%
2003 35% 30% 27% 8%
2004 37% 26% 27% 10%
2005GE 33% 36% 23% 8%
2006 39% 26% 25% 10%
2007 40% 26% 24% 10%
2008 43% 24% 23% 10%
2009 35% 22% 25% 18%
2010GE 37% 30% 24% 9%
2011 38% 37% ? ?
2012 33% 39% ? ?
2013 25% 29% ? ?
2014 30% 31% 11% ?
I don't have the last few years' LD NEVS, and of course UKIP only starts to feature recently, as distinct from the Others.
Columns are Con, Lab, LD, Oths. You will have of course to reverse the sign of the (calculated) leads, depending on who was in Opposition...
I ignore the locals which were held on the same day as the GE for obvious reasons. Also I omit the 1992 locals, held only a few weeks after the GE, when the Tories were still clearly benefiting from an afterglow effect.
Regression modelling for time series data like these, particularly relating to differences is not a statistically robust approach, so your r2 isn't telling you much. Even if you went for something a bit fancier; a non-linear approach like GLM, or something more robust like least squares, you are on a sticky wicket. Can't see the other suggestion of Logistic helping much either. Something more explicitly designed for timer series like ARIMA would be better.
Mind you, that is going to give you, give or take, the same answer.
New Populus VI: Lab 36 (=); Cons 34 (=); LD 9 (=); UKIP 14 (=); Oth 8 (+1) Tables http://popu.lu/s_vi140527
http://www.breitbart.com/Breitbart-London/2014/05/27/Farage-bloke-wedding-win
Read more: http://www.nottinghampost.com/Nigel-Farage-8217-s-UKIP-target-Broxtowe-seat/story-21147345-detail/story.html#ixzz32vmkl5Xw
Read more at http://www.nottinghampost.com/Nigel-Farage-8217-s-UKIP-target-Broxtowe-seat/story-21147345-detail/story.html#ZRbwb7AShsdB48GE.99
That means that, if you want to invest in bonds, it's not obvious that a tracker fund is the best approach at the moment, but if you go to an actively-managed bond fund, charges eat up a lot of your expected return. For a novice investor, my view is that it's too hard to get right.
Ladbrokes Politics @LadPolitics 4m
Ladbrokes took a £14,000 bet today on Tories to win most seats at 11/10. That's now Evens.
I am not arguing about the negative effects of immigration, I am arguing with MrJones's absurd suggestion that London is a poorer city than it once was and that this is as a consequence of deliberate decision-making. There may be parts of Wembley that have deteriorated. The corollary of that is that much of inner London has dramatically improved. The comparison between where I grew up - Kentish Town, Tufnell Park, Camden Town, Holloway, Islington, Stoke Newington, Crouch End, Hornsey and Finsbury Park - between then and now is very marked, and all for the better. London's population was in decline for much of the post-war period up until the 1980s and there was a reason for that - it was dirty, unhealthy and decrepit. Indeed, those of us who remember the City and the West End back in the late 70s and early 80s see something far grander, far cleaner and far more prosperous than it once was. That's why people want to live in London. I am in our office in London Bridge today. About 80% of the people we employ were born in the UK. Looking around I can see one person apart from me who was born in London. The rest are immigrants from elsewhere.
Officers are investigating match-fixing claims over Wednesday's World Cup friendly between Nigeria and Scotland
http://news.sky.com/story/1270007/scotland-world-cup-friendly-match-fixing-probe
And UKIP's just suspended one of its newly elected councillors - Dave Small accused of racism and homophobia
"Without London, Labour could well have been 2nd in the local elections and third in the European elections."
...and without the South-East constituency Labour would have topped the polls in the Euros
and been even further ahead in the Locals."
yeah but it's not just London vs SE it's London vs SE, SW, EM, WM, East etc.
"To put this all in perspective, in 1989 the Greens got well over half what UKIP got last week. How seismic was that?"
Very - zillions of pounds worth of Green-related stuff followed.
"p.s. Just to link the two topics of this thread. I think the reason EdM was chosen as Labour leader was because, discounting the obvious non-starter (Diane Abbot), he was the most obvious not-Blair candidate."
I still think EMili was meant to split Balls' vote and let DMili through but it went wrong.
It's hard to square the notion that London is a poorer city when its very,very difficult to buy a property in any london borough, even a studio flat, for less than 180,000.
When 2/5 of party loyalists want rid of you it is time for a brandy and the revolver in the library. Except if they are weirdie beardies.
I personally do think Clegg should go. The lib dems have nothing to lose.
Ironically this would probably be a good thing for Cameron and the tories...
UK: Labour councillor suspended following homophobic slur investigation
http://www.pinknews.co.uk/2014/02/05/uk-labour-councillor-suspended-following-homophobic-slur-investigation/
a) they're rich, prosperous multiculti and happy
or
b) the political class have been importing poverty on a massive scale and so far it's been concentrated in the cities
Alternatively you can invest in something like the Jupiter Strategic Bond fund, and leave it to the managers to do all the tricky analysis of duration, creditworthiness and exchange-rate risk, but then you are hit by the charges on what is already a less-than-stellar expected return. That might still be worthwhile as a small part of the portfolio, though.
http://www.libdemvoice.org/exclusive-poll-54-of-lib-dem-members-want-nick-clegg-to-stay-as-leader-40408.html
Are they voters who attend certain, ahem, 'clubs'?
GEs could be to 1dp
1979 7.1
1983 15.2
1987 11.8
1992 7.6
1997 12.8
2001 9.3
2005 3.0
2010 7.3
Lab 1.96
Con 2.06
i might be dismayed in a year's time, as The Watcher says, but for now I'm just enjoying the prospect of a real three-cornered fight - it'd be fun.
Have you ever actually been to London? Are you @MorrisDancer in disguise?
**except at the top
I notice that neither of us chose to live there. You, I believe from your posts on here, chose to live in Warwickshire and I am in Sussex.
Intimidation and political literature in polling booths.
Current 3 1.77
Just Dave and Ed 2,82
Cam only 9
Wtf? First, how does someone benefit (except Fon, who I presume are not villains) by charging a random person to upgrade? Second, how does Fon refund the money without knowing what the card is?
A few months ago someone on here linked to a map which was colour coded by home ownership-type (owned, privately rented, social housing). Unfortunately I can't find it now, ifanyone still has the link please could they share it.
Coefficients Standard Error t Stat P-value
Intercept -0.12087037 0.012193935 -9.912334795 6.09009E-05
X Variable 1 1.485459093 0.134602505 11.03589482 3.29308E-05
df SS MS F Significance F
Regression 1 0.070769437 0.070769437 121.7909744 3.29308E-05
You're missing one of the great global success stories of the last few decades. People come from right round the world to get richer in London. And not just from poorer countries. London is France's sixth biggest city. It's Sweden's fourth biggest city. I'm sure I could go round other first world countries with similar statistics.
Open your eyes.
I could see how there is a big class of strivers, grads on first/second jobs etc maybe earning 30/50k, who feel they have zero chance of getting somewhere in life given the price of property etc.
I could see how they might support ed, who is at least sympathetic to their cause (even if rent controls might not help them).
http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/andrewgilligan/100273000/lutfur-rahman-an-election-labour-chose-to-lose/
"Some dramatic and highly unexpected changes in vote share took place in wards which Rahman’s Labour opponents had thought completely safe for them. I will be looking more closely at some of these numbers in the days ahead."
Decimation doesn't seem to be quite the right word for the LibDems...
;-0