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politicalbetting.com » Blog Archive » It looks as though Lord Ashcroft could be polling the sligh
politicalbetting.com » Blog Archive » It looks as though Lord Ashcroft could be polling the slightly less marginal LAB-CON battlegrounds
Yesterday my wife was telephone polled for what appeared to be a seat specific survey in Bedford where we live. This is LAB target number 24 and was won by the Tories with a 3% majority in 2010.
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The Women's cycling points race finishes
England, Gold
Wales, Silver
Scotland, Bronze
And the Scottish competitor suggests they fly the Union flag at the medal ceremony.
Better Together
27/07/2014 18:15
We advise against all travel to #Libya; British nationals in Libya should leave now by commercial means ow.ly/zCgPR
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2706941/He-Middle-East-not-UK-Peace-envoy-Tony-Blair-blasted-throwing-surprise-birthday-party-wife-Cheries-60th-6million-mansion-Gaza-death-toll-passes-1-000.html
Every PBer's favourite bus company?
A. Nationalist Express!
First reported by Ma'ariv, then in English by i24news, “thousands of terrorists were meant to cross over to Israel from Gaza through the tunnels and kill and kidnap as many Israelis as they could. The source added that the army learned about the huge planned attack during the interrogations of Hamas prisoners, captured during Operation Protective Edge in Gaza.”
http://www.breitbart.com/Big-Peace/2014/07/25/Reports-Massive-Terrorist-Invasion-of-Israel-Thwarted-by-Security-Forces
Spin from Israel, hyperbole from captured Hamas terrorists, or the reason why Israel have gone so big and on for so long with their foray into Gaza?
The Scottish people should vote yes , so they do not have to follow the British Foreign Office policies, especially if under Hammond there are also advocating leaving the EU.
However ,I imagine they will be frightened into voting NO, it will be up to Labour Voters in Scotland to take this generational opportunity to gain Independence from London.
Don't forget to check my post-race analysis of the very exciting race in Hungary we enjoyed today:
http://enormo-haddock.blogspot.co.uk/2014/07/hungary-post-race-analysis.html
The net result last time was (as far as I am aware) that you might have just as well taken the national polls and applied UNS. Obviously if you do that now with the current small Labour lead, you will predict that a lot of Conservative seats will be lost to Labour. Probably a marginals poll will come to the same conclusion. But does it actually take us any further towards evaluating what will happen in May 2015?
Does anyone know whether there were any post-mortems on the marginals polls last time, which might help us assess their usefulness?
In any case Iraq, Afghanistan and Libya were not much better when Saddam, the Taliban and Gaddaffi were in charge. While on balance Iraq was probably a mistake, Afghanistan at least has got rid of the Taliban from the virtually complete control they had over the country pre-911 along with Al Qaeda and Bin Laden is now dead.
Of course it was also the British Parliament which sensibly voted down any intervention in Syria to try and topple Assad. As for non-interventionism, there was a recent preposterous tweet that Independence would allow Salmond to lead efforts to intervene in Gaza and secure peace in the Middle East
I know that frequently voters aren't normally aware, but surely no opponent would miss the chance of ensuring that they are.
I can see parties carrying out their own polls, so they can find out where they may need to apply more resource. They may also ask questions about what issues people are interested in. e.g there may be a local hospital under threat of closure, in which case they can talk about NHS resource, without making any commitment.
That said there are a number of PBers (The Old Contemptibles) from the early days and a few others that have a modicum of benign influence.
Mike has always tried to follow a principle of light touch and at times he and the MODERATORS have shown the patience of saints with some posters and have only issued bans on infrequent occasions and often for short periods.
Trolling is a problem, the more so when it simply comprises inane, repetitive abuse and it damages the reputation and standing of PB when it gets out of hand.
Of course only what Israel is doing at the moment.
Afghanistan had some merit initially in displacing the Taliban , there was no reason to stay
this length of time.
It will also follow the South Vietnam situation , when US Troops disengage.
Iraq was the USA war, to correct the the previous one.
Libya hard to see much improvement from the previous regime.
I hope Scotland does go Independent , which might finally get through to the ruk goverments
that we are now no longer an add on to US policy.
Hmmm
Well BobaFett has said he's not posting anymore, so does anyone fancy making a book on his next username?
Who else do you think I am Malco?
http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/0/
In other words, if the sample was taken from say 80 seats but the total was weighted correctly, it should not give inaccurate results. After all those are the seats which will change hands.
As JackW says, though ... if your face fits then you have influence. If it doesn't then you don't.
The first Gulf War actually achieved its aims of driving Saddam from Kuwait, unfortunately the second only brought chaos after Saddam's toppling I would agree. Even then, at least the Iraqis have a democratic government
Libya at least too has a democratic government rather than the sponsor of Lockerbie in charge.
As for US policy, Salmond has been making frequent visits to New York and the US to drum up nationalist sympathy, and of course the present US president opposed the Iraq War unlike the last Scottish PM
Numerous posters have complained about this situation in the past but have seemingly been ignored by OGH and the moderators. You seem to have more clout, hence my request.
As Lord Ashcroft is of the right then it's very plausible he's doing it for altruistic open reasons and a genuine desire to educate and help. The Left do not have that in their hearts and therefore cannot see it in others.
It takes a bold man to claim that either Libya or Iraq have governments at the present time, let alone democratic ones. Libya is currently ruled by various tribal strongmen. Iraq has fractured, perhaps permanently, into three areas, the north-east under the control of the Kurds, the west is now part of the Islamic State, while the rafida in the south-east remain nominally loyal to al-Maliki.
Libya has also had a 62% turnout in parliamentary elections earlier this month
I think you are to optimistic in all the cases mentioned, especially that Libya has a democratic government in charge, I think you need to read more about the current situation.
In essence, I think you are taking hook line and sinker current, and past British foreign office policies.
His Lordship does ‘altruism’ – big, stonking altruism in fact.
Given the news today I think your idea that Libya has a democratic government in charge is rather optimistic. Indeed I might venture so far as to suggest that Libya has joined the ranks of failed states with no effective government. Aside from removing the last dictator I am not sure what good our intervention in Libya actually achieved. The number of deaths form sectarian and tribal conflict continues to rise every day, a very large pool of weaponry has found its way onto the market, neighbouring countries are now less stable (two have required intervention by foreign forces) and, most importantly, we taught the Russian and Chinese governments that we do not care about the terms of UN resolutions (the situation in The Ukraine could be seen as a direct result of that little by-blow).
As for Afghanistan, we have at great cost in life and treasure supported a corrupt weasel and his corrupt pals whose writ barely runs through Kabul never mind the rest of the country. The Taliban may not take over the country again but the chances must be high of it once again descending in to a patch work of minor conflicts as warlords battle to maintain their turf and their share of the opium crop (now much larger than it was in 2006 when we put in ground troops). The very circumstances that led to the rise of the Taliban in the first place.
Iraq has a democratically elected government, true. However, it is one that has despite all promises sidelined (to put it mildly) the Sunni Minority and the Kurds are doing their own thing without any reference to Baghdad. A vicious Sunni insurgency has taken control of great chunks of the North West and the whole place seems to be descending into chaos and civil war. The death toll since our invasion? God knows. Will there ever be another general election? I doubt it. I think you'd struggle to find takers on a bet that Iraq will continue to exist as a unified state.
I wish I could share your optimism but with the best will in world I don't see a happy ending for the people of any of the three countries.
In the first an individual made an significant error of judgement in the heat of the moment, subsequently apologized in good faith and we all moved on without recrimination.
Trolling provides OGH and MODERATORS with more of a problem especially when 24 hour oversight is not possible and the site runs on instant publishing.
Mike is also extremely tolerant and correctly IMHO prefers a liberal light touch as default rather than reach for the big stick.
The judgement call comes when OGH has to decide whether insidious trolling is having such a deleterious effect on PB that light touch is inappropriate for some posters.
IMO that time has come.
Others outwith these threads should make their views known directly to Mike through the side bar contact should they feel the situation so warrants.
Trust that the SNP fans here are taking it with good grace ?
Lesson of this weekend for me is that Rum & Mead are not "mixers". Still at least I didn't end up in Bournemouth !
An excellent post, which I very much agree with.
I wonder, if the same thinking was in place at the highest level in the early 60s. I am sure Britain would have been like Australia and followed the US lead on Vietnam.
@TimesNewsdesk: The good wife: Can Justine Miliband win the election for Ed? http://t.co/L6X9hf4sck
The road to GE 2015 is a foggy road.
The East German female swimmers and athletes were famously doped up to the eyeballs.
Afghanistan was of course where the Taliban harboured Bin Laden and Al Qaeda who killed 67 Britons on 9/11. Now the Taliban have been ousted and Bin Laden is dead. Karzai was no saint I would agree, but he is old news and there was a high turnout again by Afghans in their recent vote to elect a new president. There have been post ballot controversies, but both Ghani and Abdullah have agreed to a full ballot verification and it looks like there will be some form of unity government formed, probably under Ghani with Abdullah in a senior role, and the security pact signed to ensure some Nato troops remain.
I do have more sympathy on Iraq, and at least Parliament sensibly stopped us toppling Assad (though we should perhaps have given aid to the FSA), but even there Iraqis are at least determining their own future, and as I said they have just elected a Kurdish President and Sunni Speaker of Parliament
It would imply that image was more important to Ed than substance.
It does though match all the available facts
In Libya, we will wait and see what government emerges and how they enforce their authority, but again Libyans are determining their own future
Here's an article from that time period..
http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2011/apr/01/ed-miliband-marriage-justine-thornton
You are optimistic in relation to Libya and Afghanistan, as I said I cannot share that optimism. As for NATO troops remaining in the latter I cannot for one minute imagine what good they will do, though I note Cameron has committed us to providing some of these obvious targets for assassins and hostage takers.
Time will tell.
http://youtu.be/kNsSu3D5h4E
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/debate/article-2707025/In-week-economy-returned-pre-crisis-level-Why-I-ex-Labour-Minister-think-Ed-Balls-MUST-apologise-mess-left-writes-DIGBY-JONES.html
Really? Both OGH and Lord Ashcroft appear to be convinced that Labour are set to win a significant number of seats from the Tories. Yet based on very recent polls, it is likely that Stephen Fisher's next projection is likely to show the Tories winning more than the 307 seats they won in 2010. On this basis, perhaps Lord Ashcroft should also be moving DOWN the scale to take into account those marginal seats which are winnable FROM Labour.
One further thing, you mentioned Syria. The best thing we could have done in there for the good of all Syrians would have been to support Assad from the get go. A great many lives would have been saved, ethnic minorities protected and the disaster currently unfolding in Iraq avoided if foreign policy was decided from the head rather than the heart of some overgrown student politicians who have been allowed to play in the real world rather than the student union debating society.
Assad is a nasty dictator who ran a multi-ethnic, multi-religious country. A country in which, provided you kept you nose out of politics you could go about your business and religious practices at will. Just like Hong Kong in the old days, in fact.
In Afghanistan we need to keep troops there as long as possible and the government needs them, though most will be withdrawn by the end of the year. If Hillary Clinton wins in 2016, and she has been vociferous in her opposition to the Taliban, followed by a Republican I can see US troops at least being there for decades if needed
I wanted to get a copy of Philippa Langley's book on discovering Richard III. I logged on yesterday at noon and found that the county has 2 copies, both at branches about 15 miles away.
I ordered one copy to be delivered to my local branch.
Today at lunchtime I get an email saying it's waiting for me. So at 2.30 I have my copy!
Bit expensive for me to buy a copy at the moment
No such illusions anymore
!. Cant recall an Ebola victim outside of fiction throwing up on a plane before
2. best wishes to the medical teams, some very senior people gone down with it this time.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/africaandindianocean/liberia/10993998/Ebola-outbreak-American-doctor-fighting-for-life-after-contracting-deadly-illness-in-Liberia.html
The bad news - you don't want to know :-(
Didn't he also write Shelter Island? I know the place well and have friends who live there