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politicalbetting.com » Blog Archive » The pollsters’ big fear: Thursday could be a disaster for them like 1992
Martin Boon, head of ICM the pollster with the best track record, has voiced on several occasions in recent weeks that the Scottish referendum could be a disaster for them on the scale of 1992. This was when all the firms totally understated the eventual CON lead of 7.5% and only one of them had a lead at all albeit of just 0.5%
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Certainly a good one to "win" if you are a pollster.
http://www.nuj.org.uk/news/nuj-calls-for-end-to-threats-and-intimidation-of-journalists/
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/8655697.stm
He describes how people are going door to door asking Britons to blindly sign proxy forms for the upcoming elections, allowing someone else in the UK to vote on their behalf.
"They said I didn't have to fill in any details, just to sign my name at the bottom of the form," he says, smiling. "So I signed two."
He laughed as he told me he had no idea who was going to vote on his behalf, and whom they were going to vote for.
"I personally know 25 other people who did the same thing, lots of people just on this street, but everybody does it."
In a sane political entity, news of this sort of abuse would cause us to cancel Commonwealth citizens being allowed to vote in the UK, in addition to proxy voting.
But with Lab/Lib/Con in charge? No chance. Mustn't upset the Muslims by stopping their corrupt voting systems.
I think you're spot on Mike, it feels like it should be a narrow NO but who knows with turnout. Just have a funny feeling the SNP know how to get their vote out and that experience could be crucial.
The uncertainty is killing me.
Deep-breath.
It is genuinely exciting up here right now, not felt this level of national energy ever.
The turnover bet is looking increasingly good though. Sporting upped their spread this morning, and stretched the margin to 1.5. They are now at 81.5%/83%.
If you are not on already, there may not be much value left. Are you? I understand Smithson Jnr is - big time.
He didn't limit it to one town, but that's the right sort of geographic area (his family is based in Karachi and Lahore). But they live in a compound & need guards...
If I am right, it will make the clean up job tricky.
Lab 35 (-2)
Con 34 (+1)
UKIP 13
LD 9
http://www.populus.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2014/09/OmOnline_Vote_15-09-2014_BPC.pdf
There are precedents: I'm thinking of the way American crime agencies brought the Mafia under control in the 70/80s, and the way they corralled violent Irish republicanism in the USA. Both the Italian and Irish communities felt that targeting and crime control by outsiders was at some level an insult, but this was overridden for the greater good. I have to say if we have Northern girls being murdered and turned into kebabs then we have probably reached the point where specific crime units have to be formed.
Time for ICM to hand on the "gold standard" but to whom?John Curtice?
Peter Kelmer has predicted No very publicly over the weekend but the response might not be more polls but a ban on all polls instead.
If the hypothesis of the correlation between the Labour lead and the inverted Yes vote is to be believed,these current GE2015 will be just as significant and equally on trial.
I accept that some parts of Pakistan are worse than others. But when 88% of Pakistanis believe that women should always obey their husbands, there's clearly a level of misogyny that exists throughout the entire place.
I'm still sticking to the position as shown in the polls - TCTC. But I may be completely wrong
No excuse for 1992 tho, they had had, lots of general elections to have perfected their craft.
Their price on the Yes percentage is 45-47
As for the NHS becoming a mess, Thatcher often boasted that she spent more on it than Labour did.
Does anyone on here get migranes?
If so would you mind PMing me? Had a couple of questions about a sexy new technology (reimbursed by NICE, amazingly) that I've been offered a stake in and am intrigued by.
http://games.usvsth3m.com/kick-the-tories-out-of-scotland/
is there a stick a pin in Salmond to watch him deflate?
The grass roots movements that comprise YES are quite diverse, plenty of people voting YES are not SNP supporters.
- That the polling is wildly inaccurate, more than we ever believed, or
- That people said "YES" or "DK" because they did not want to publicly say "NO" because of embarrassment or potential intimidation?
Roll on Friday morning.....
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indefinite_leave_to_remain
Yes voters are planning to 'hug a No voter' in George Square
http://glasgow.stv.tv/161397/
For me the real question mark hangs over 2011 Did Not Votes - it's tended to be that polls that weight them close to the 50% they actually were show the DNV's as No voters but polls that happen to weigh them significantly less than that show them as much more likely to be Yes voters.
Like Mike thought 55/45 or 45/55 wouldn't surprise me in the least and I'd go as far out as 60/40 either way before surprise gripped me. (Pending Wednesday's polls)
Inept leader of the opposition, trailing the PM on the leader ratings, and mahoosively on the economy.
An exclusive poll today reveals that David Cameron’s Conservatives have established a massive lead on the issue that the public say is most important to their vote at the general election — managing the economy.
In the past six months, the percentage who think the Tories have the best policies for the economy has jumped from 35 to 45 per cent, pollsters Ipsos MORI found.
That gives Mr Cameron’s party a 25-point lead on the number one issue over Ed Miliband’s Labour, whose share ebbed from 22 to 20 per cent.
http://www.standard.co.uk/news/politics/conservatives-take-a-25point-lead-on-managing-the-uk-economy-9733417.html
I don't know who is going to win on Thursday. But I think we will be surprised by the result, whatever it is.
Pause.
This is no help at all, is it...:-(
Kay Burley @KayBurley 34m
Reports that Scottish Greens co-convener Patrick Harvie says role of Queen in Scotland should be 'challenged' if the #indyref vote is YES
http://wingsoverscotland.com/and-then-my-heart-went-boom/
http://www.standard.co.uk/comment/comment/isabel-oakeshott-if-scotland-breaks-away-the-pms-number-is-up-9733351.html
Yes, that's a very mean spread margin, especially as you can get 5/2 >85% with Shadsy.
If you are not on the turnover spread yet and you think it will be high, Shads is the man.
I have David Tennant as a No, Ditto Peter Capaldi, wasn't sure about Sylvester McCoy.
Don't forget, I'm in Edinburgh tomorrow for a few hours, I shall do my lovebombing on the Scots, that should probably lead to a big swing to No.
I've packed my England rugby shirts especially for the occasion.
http://www.paddypower.com/bet/politics/other-politics/scottish-politics?ev_oc_grp_ids=1905617
Out of curiosity, were you around before she came to power?
In other news a very interesting thread from Guido on the economic competence question: http://order-order.com/2014/09/15/the-two-eds-effect-tories-open-up-25-poll-lead-on-economy/
(As reported elsewhere, see below.)
I should have added sensible. Designed to benefit the many, even if only in the medium term, not the few.
It is clear that the NO camp are diverse, including as they do traditional Labourites, Tories, LibDemmer, Orange Men etc. What is also clear is that the grassroots are not as apparent or abundant.
Nor did I denigrate NO supporters, indeed I think it was a mistake by Salmond to say what he did.
http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=e28_1410725994
I'll be on the trains more than I spend time in Edinburgh.
http://www.theguardian.com/politics/2014/sep/15/alex-salmond-bbc-protest-nick-robinson?CMP=twt_gu
I'm going to need to practice doing an X come Thursday as my hand will be shaking like a 3 day bender hangover! #indyref
Ping me next time you're about for more than a few hours...
54% of the Scottish LGBT community will vote for independence
http://www.pinknews.co.uk/2014/09/15/pinknews-poll-54-of-the-scottish-lgbt-community-will-vote-for-independence/
I simply don't get the sense of a day of wrath and doom impending from the more critical media, or when I am out and about in a mixed constituency with some former hard Labour areas. As it happens, I have just been out to lunch and took the chance to speak to a local canvasser and activist, admittedly for Yes. Her view was that there had been no trouble of any kind apart from a stupid and childish (probably in both senses) bit of vandalism against Yes, and one minor incident which was probably an elderly eccentric more than anything else.
Anyway, we will see what happens.
BTW, I should clarify when I said that Mr Darling and BT had been told off by the police and their union, I meant purely in the informal sense - not in the formal legal sense. Sorry for any confusion.
One thing that strikes me is the uniformity of swing between the 1979 and 1997 referenda, despite them being 18 years apart and the fact that the swing was very large (22.7 points).
Clearly independence and devolution are two very different things, but given that some areas of Scotland will be markedly more nationalist than others, and there are no other proxies available for this variation, I thought it would be interesting to examine what a Scotland-wide 50-50 tie would look like in each area if the regional dispersion were the same as in the 1997 devolution referendum. Equivalently, this represents what would happen if we took the 1997 devolution result and applied a uniform swing of -24.3 (to make it a 50-50 tie across Scotland as a whole). The local results generated could then serve as a benchmark for early results in this referendum.
Some health warnings:
-As mentioned already, the question is different and the implications of that might not be uniform across Scotland (banks, Trident, etc)
-17 years, obviously, is a long time
-The new local authority areas are much smaller than the ones used in 1979 (and hence also in my 1979 vs 1997 comparison), so there could be a greater variety of swings. -Additionally, smaller local authority areas might be more sensitive to demogrpahic shifts in the intervening period
-A very high turnout (particularly by modern standards) is widely expected, and these increases might not by evenly spread geographically, which could be significant if the “don’t normally vote” group lean one way.
Nevertheless, for the purpose of interpreting early results, it is important to get some feel for the kind of way those votes could be spread around.
So, with all those words of caution in mind, here is that uniform swing example:
http://numbercruncheruk.blogspot.co.uk/2014/09/indyref-early-results-benchmark.html
If this is representative, it is clear both sides would need to win big in their stronger areas to have any chance of winning overall.
This analysis is intended as a starting point. If anyone has suggestions on how to improve it, feel free to comment (preferably via the link above, because this thread could get a bit busy!)
NC
He bought two winning lottery tickets, one for Donna when she was getting married, and once to give to a teacher a winning ticket, to get him to retire, so he could investigate something weird at a school (was the episode where David Tennant's Doctor met Sarah-Jane Smith for the first time)
So, if debt-to-GDP was say 60%, inflation 2.5%, and economic growth 2.5%, then even with a deficit of 2% of GDP you would see debt-to-GDP decline (albeit very slightly).
Of course, it's worth remembering that our deficit, despite "austerity", is the second worst in the OECD as a percentage of GDP.