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politicalbetting.com » Blog Archive » One by-product of the UKIP surge – smaller parties like Nat
politicalbetting.com » Blog Archive » One by-product of the UKIP surge – smaller parties like National Health Action have been swamped
As can be seen the party chalked up 18% in the poll taking votes from LAB and the LDs and leaving the blues ahead. Those figures were quite remarkable and suggested that there was an appetite for a non-mainstream party to emerge. There was but not NHA.
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(Not a position Tories have been used to for a while)
Charles, any news on vaccines? Been busy in that area recently?
Galloway is the exception that proves the rule, but it's generally much easier for minor parties to make progress against governments than against oppositions. Rightly or wrongly Labour has the NHS brand sewn up, so these guys were never going to make much progress against them during this parliament.
It's no surprise that UKIP is now the mainstream opposition to this cloaca maxima of bs.
In fact one could put it the other way round: the evident flakiness of the 18% figure in the 2012 poll should make one wary of the 2013 UKIP poll responses.
Hardly the 'man of the people' with soil under his fingernails that you're making him out to be!
Fair Cloacina, goddess of this place
Accustomed seat of every child of grace
On this, thy fair throne, let our libations flow
Not rudely swift, nor obstinately slow
I dont think Moniker said Farage was a man of the people
If you look at what he did, Disraeli would fail the tests as applied now. Yet what he did both ensured the survival of the conservatives/tories but also ensured that that they remained a keystone in government for the next 100 years.
This seems provable logically already.
It takes until the age of about 22 to get an undergraduate degree in maths. Broadly, the older you get, the more recent the maths you study. Thus when you are 10 you do geometry (Ancient Greek). Then you do algebra (mediaeval Arabian) at 12, then calculus ay 15 (18th century, Newton / Leibniz etc), then at A Level you will do probability and statistics (the last branch to be invented / developed, mainly from the early 19th century onwards).
Either mathematics continues to develop further, or it does not. If it does, then one day, it must get to a point where it takes more than a human lifespan just to assimilate what's already known. At that point, more can never be discovered, because nobody lives long enough to build on what's known.
If it does not develop further, then the hypothesis of human knowledge being finite is proven.
It's a bit embarrassing that we can assimilate all the maths there are in a quarter of one human lifespan.
His 'Dave will still win in 2015' is now in the telly - the comments underneath are quite amusing too.
But hypothetically if what you said was true, then we'd just specialise more in the education. There was an age when there were scientists who were true polymaths, now there's so much science we divide and sub-divide it.into separate subjects and sub-specialties.
Care to elaborate on that one?
I read comments like that from UKIPpers and begin to wonder if those Scots had a point last week.
edit: yep, that fixed it.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=byQIPdHMpjc
It's no coincidence that Europe's richest nations are the most 'green', and poorest are, well, less so.
Funnily enough the Sun said the same thing today. After pouring a large bucket of scorn on him, of course..
Because as I wrote at the weekend, the current swing vote is among social conservatives, which none of the current parties are catering for. By contrast, there are plenty of politicians in the main three who advocate what might be seen as a green-lite agenda. There is a market for a full-strength Green agenda but it's only believed in by 1-2%, which is what the Greens are polling: their core support.
The main reason for this is that UKIP is doing a fine job - as Mike has pointed out - of sweeping up the "none of the above" vote, which is not only hurting Labour (as the main party of opposition) and the Lib Dems (who previously benefitted from it), but also established minor parties such as the BNP and Greens, and aspirant minor parties such as the NHS lot.
To elaborate, the Greens have an Australian leader, and I wouldnt imagine that is much of a plus point for them with voters.
By analogy, in the 1920s it was well understood that somewhere far off, there was an upper limit to the speed attainable by piston-engined aircraft. You could streamline them, fit a tractor at the front and a pusher at the back, have two contra-rotated propellers at each end, etc - but eventually, should the tips of the blades turn at Mach 1, the prop will shake itself off the airframe (or shake the airframe off itself).
And if you engineer a way around that, then the drag created by the propeller itself will eventually exceed the thrust it provides, in the same way that you can't freefall at more than 140mph.
Eventually the corpus of mathematical knowledge to be absorbed must exceed the amount absorbable in the time available to do it; or, require so much specialisation that the number of people doing it falls, with the same consequence.
Specialisation defers that day, but not indefinitely.
The halving of LD support combined with Miliband's less than inspirational leadership of Labour ought to be an opportunity for the Greens. In fact, it is. They're just not taking it.
"Some priests opposed to the Crown's policies on religion have suggested that they should have greater influence on the King. Would you support such a suggestion?"
There is little doubt that a similar proportion would have said Yes as approve of the so-called National Health Action party in the Ashcroft poll. When the government interferes in the national religion, whether it does so well or badly, it tends to stir up dissent.
The idea that "we can assimilate all the maths there are in a quarter of one human lifespan." is so ridiculous it's farcical.
And hanging over the background of all this is computing power.
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/05/21/sports/soccer/a-guide-to-attending-a-premier-league-game.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0
Farage is a salesman, and is happy to admit to being one. If DC, EM, NC and NF were asked if they were salesman, how many would be comfortable giving the one word answer: yes? Yet nobody at the top of an organisation that depends for its success on his sales skills, can afford to be too important, or too precious, to describe themselves as a salesman.
And the top man needs to show leadership. Only UKIP of the 4 main parties is led by someone who obviously ticks both boxes.
Can that compensate for the absence of history, the lack of organisation, and FPTP? Almost always, the answer is no.
But currently, all the other leaders are so uninspiring, so pedestrian, and so dull, that Farage is in with a great shout.
As people were discussing with regards to the SDP, the Greens have managed to get the main parties to implement their agenda but have made neutered themselves in the process.
BTW - on topic I had never heard of National Health Action even 18 months ago.
He can't believe that they didn't give Russia any points. The ambassador is also concerned.
They ordered an internal investigation on the matter...or, in their own words, "this incident, possibly initiated by certain interest groups"
Howarth would blame the "aggressive homosexual community" for this.
@ukipwebmaster
The EU politics of envy.
Killing the goose that lays the golden egg out of spite and jealousy. http://youtu.be/BCD7Z84qnGc?a
Farage admitted to having had a priveliged childhood, and wasnt ashamed of it at all. Spoke well
BTW I used to work at IG Sport, are you that David Kendrick? (team perfs)
Kusum Parashar from Ealing Southall CLP
Purna Sen – the deputy director of the Institute of Public Affairs at the London School of Economics and a local party activist in Brighton
Anne Marie Waters from London http://www.annemariewaters.org/about-me/
Fact is that the Greens could be doing better. There are probably a lot of soft left votes that could be attracted to them given a moderate, high-profile and politically able leader, which is something they don't have. Even so, the overlap beween potential UKIP and Green voters is surprisingly large and consists of those who like protesting against the government and/or the establishment in general.
In addition, UKIP's picking up plenty of socially conservative voters, which the Greens could never hope to attract but the bandwagon that these voters have generated for Farage has created a momentum which is currently enabling them to be the vehicle of choice for protest voters, so crowding out the Greens and others. That dynamic would always have been difficult for other minor parties but their own failings makes it that much harder.
The leader is so important these days in securing a hearing. Especially for the smaller parties.
John Swinney -> Samond
Lord Pearson -> Farage
Totally changed the fortunes of the parties. The greens have clearly made a bad choice that could be reversed as in UKIP & SNP.
Interesting that although as you say the Greens made a few breakthroughs on May 2nd , they went backwards in two of their stronger areas Norwich and Lancaster .
A couple of the Green losses in Norwich I expected, one a bit more disappointing, it's still the area that needs to be worked next hardest as most likely to result in a second seat.
Please lets not get into a petty debate about what constitutes British here...
As I type I can only think of Gisela (Stewart?) from The Labour party at a stretch
I agree that specialisation holds the key; it would be interesting to get the opinion of someone who already works in a highly specialised, rapidly-advancing area, for instance medicine. I assume surgeons read deeply in their area of concern, and less widely in surrounding areas.
If there is a limit to useful specialisation, the Internet will have pushed that limit further into the future. There is now no need to order a paper copy of the latest journal; it can be in your fingers in moments. This makes it easier for experts to get the latest advances in other areas, and for ideas and concepts to cross-pollinate without attending conferences. Computers, whilst not intelligent, will be able to pattern-match and take much of the grunt work out of scientific inquiry. "Give me all the papers and research on 5-Fluorouracil in the last three years, sorted by references to GCATAGTC DNA sequence."
I'm fascinated by Henry Cavendish, who lived up to 1810. (*) An immensely wealthy man, he used his wealth to investigate natural philosophy. He discovered hydrogen, calculated the mass of the earth, and was an early experimenter with electricity.
A hundred years after his death, James Clerk Maxwell studied Cavendish's personal papers and found that Cavendish had discovered many things that others had taken credit for, such as Ohm's law. He never publicised many of his investigations and discoveries, which looking back was a hideous failure.
There is no way anyone could be such a polymath nowadays.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henry_Cavendish
(*) Actually in my old home village in Derbyshire, Doveridge.
I dont think beating the Lib Dems is a sensible target for the Greens. All they can do is maximise their own potential. A slight improvement on 2009 would be great. If that's enough to beat the Lib Dems so be it; if it isnt that's no big deal.
BTW I used to work at IG Sport, are you that David Kendrick? (team perfs)
Yes
Oxford West and Abingdon is an example of this, though it wasn't enough to save the Lib Dem incumbent. Overall the Green vote was up by less than 8,000 votes, despite standing in more than 100 extra seats, and yet the Green vote did go up substantially in seats where it made immediate sense, such as Brighton and Norwich.
My hypothesis is then that potential Green voters are prepared to vote tactically anti-Tory at the next election to get Osborne out of the Treasury. If Miliband were to tack to the right as Blairites recommend then this might change.
Kawczynskis accent is not strong to my ear
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a5ATka5zte0
Brooks Newmark doesnt have a US accent at all
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cQ1B4Wz5gxo
are the Euro Green targets North West, South West and East?
I think they aren't likely to get anything in SW and NW (because they are 2 regions where LibDem should hold their seat)...maybe East because it's a region where Labour could underperform as UKIP stole them many of the Con switchers
Targeting doesnt make much sense for these elections though I believe NW and East were the target regions last time. I wonder whether a small improvement in Yorkshire might not be more likely to deliver a seat than some of those if both the BNP and the Lib Dems fall back by enough.
The Bermondsey and Old Southwark selection candidates for Labour:
http://www.london-se1.co.uk/news/view/6842
Disappointing that IOS doesnt appear to be among them. He was probably scared off by the shock of Simon Hughes being likely to confound his prediction by standing again.
Definitely not in the same way that Natalie Bennet sounds Australian
You dont think it matters? Do you think voters would be more no more or less likely to vote for a party with a leader that speaks with a strong foreign accent? Suprised if that were so
for targets, I just meant regions where you think Greens can gain a seat.
Labour and UKIP should get a second seat each in Yorkshire. Con will certainly lose their third seat....but will they hang on the second?
If you poll 9% (assuming BNP and LD go below it), they would need be over 18% ( which is realistic as they were at 24.5% in 2009). If you go over 10%, it will obviously change things...
Val is backing Prem IIRC.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qccFFPJJePs
You worry for some fan's physical health (heart attack) they look so tense
That said, I only really like the bits where he doesn't go on about the singularity. Don't like things I can't understand.
I hope the people who witnessed this asshat's suicide manage to get over it.
(I've startled myself by calling someone who committed suicide without hurting anyone an asshat - I normally have a little more sympathy than that. But in this case, I think it's the right wording, from what we know at the moment).
Tobias was outdone by Jim Shannon who let his side down by admitting that he's heard from Roman Catholics on this issue.
I can think of a Frenchman with a strong accent that, if he were in charge of the economy , would probably have the UK punching above our weight internationally, running a surplus while upgrading every school, hospital and council house, probably funded by unparallelled growth from selling gold at the market high having bought it for next to nothing.
Nobody would be complaining then.
https://twitter.com/georgeeaton/status/336813508794654721
What was it that Corsican chap said about reinforcing failure?
http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/0/formula1/22606809
McLaren are putting fewer resources than planned into 2014 to try and make the 2013 car better. This season's title is lost already, and the monumental regulation changes from this year to next will be in place for years. This is not Sparta, but it is madness.
In unrelated news, my octo-lemur photographer snapped the moment E. Miliband heard of the latest Survation poll: http://awkwardedmilibandmoments.tumblr.com/post/50726460359/ed-loves-it-when-his-evil-master-plan-comes
Sooner or later my antique Blackberry is going to give out.
But, of course, they were not ACTING like they did.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2001/dec/22/euro.money4
I see it as a verb myself e.g. 'Ooh, I could go a right tebbit tonight', or 'that back room's only for tebbiting'.
Just not for the gays, Jeffrey!
Tbf the SDLP is likely to support it and that is just as perverse. I love the fact that Sylvia Harmon is thought of as a relative liberal in Northern Irish circles.
Scottish Labour MPs have been voting on both sides at all stages as well.
In any other job in the public sector , he would be on a supportive action plan to enable him to fulfil his contractual duties.