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politicalbetting.com » Blog Archive » CON hopes are based on the LDs flourishing in LAB-CON marginals but not in CON-LD ones. The opposite is the case.
Because so much has been going on politically in the past few days very little attention has been paid to the latest round of marginals polling that was published by Lord Ashcroft last Sunday afternoon. The focus was on Lib Dem seats and the chart above is based on Lord A”s aggregate data from 17 separate polls.
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The Tories can't get a majority, but that's not what Dave wants anyway. He wants another coalition with the Lib Dems so he doesn't have to keep any of his promises.
http://lordashcroftpolls.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/09/ANP-summary-1409291.pdf
it occurred to me that rather like the the Scottish referendum the country splits down the middle. There are two basic choices. You either hold the values of the Mail or you find them as repulsive as I do and choose the means to make sure they don't prevail. The economy counts for nothing. You're one side of this divide or the other.
I think the Lib Dems are going to do much better than many think. The necessity to keep the Chris Graylings of this word in their boxes will be so overwhelming that progressives from all sides will raise from their slumbers and make sure they vote against them..
Understandably, staunch Labour voters have despised it, bitter at supposed left-leaning MPs propping up the Tories. But the most anger has come from those 2010 Lib Dem 'supporters' who became aghast at finding themselves 'supporting' a party in power.
I imagine this batch of voters are made up if the anti-everything brigade and those furious at Labour over the Iraq War. They are happier in permanent opposition, hating everything and blaming establishment conspiracies for everything.
Will these voters all vote Labour if they think Labour will win?
it must be hard for polling companies to read the minds of this group.
And also inconsistent with the polling.
"LIB Dems will block Tory plans to slash the UK’s bloated benefits bill as the price of joining another Coalition, a Cabinet minister has signalled."
From the Sun. Big tack left ? Big tack below 5% ?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Opinion_polling_for_the_next_United_Kingdom_general_election#Graphical_summary
I'd much rather Cameron at the tender mercies of Clegg and Alexander than Carswell and Reckless.
This has been a much happier government than Major's - whatever the tears and tantrums of the coming months....
Simililarly, a ratonal man might read Polly Toynbee and George Monbiot, and think to himself "I must do anything - anything - to keep Guardian readers out of public office".
Such a one would be no more enlightened than you.
This is why (a) first past the post is antidemocratic and (b) why turnout will once again be a record low. People don't want to vote because the politicians are all the same. In a LibDem Tory marginal one or the other is likely to win which is no choice. In a safe seat if you don support the guaranteed winner you have no choice. And when big capital buy the politicians and shape the parties to be broadly indistinguishable on major policy areas what's the point? Which is of course why big capital does it - give people a vote but for parties doing your will.
The Telegraph was right. We DO need a revolution in this country. A pity Scotland voted no, that would have done the job
“That helps the yellows." – Hmm, haven’t these ‘spats’ manufactured or not, been an ongoing saga within the coalition for the past 4 years; - doesn’t appear to have helped the LDs nationally so far does it?
On a separate subject, why is Glasgow the preferred choice for conference – why not Edinburgh or even Bristol?
You certainly can't accuse the Lib Dems of going "comfort zone" in going to Scotland, let alone Glasgow...
Not sure if that matters much. If they retain a wodge of say 30 MPs it provides the visibility base to recover in due course.
F1: Vettel leaving Red Bull, to be replaced by Kvyat. Other moves are strongly suspected, such as Alonso to McLaren, but not confirmed.
Writing the pre-race piece now. Bit sleepy so I may leave it a bit before perusing the betting markets.
Mr. StClare, well quite.
I knew of someone once who produced a perfectly argued academic paper demonstrating that earthquakes are more likely to occur on Sundays.
Voodoo psephology.
By contrast, a strategy of attracting tactical voters means that not only will they run a mile when that party suddenly finds the going hard (probably not an experience it's used to either), but there's much less of a core too. There is also always the possibility that another party may become a more effective tactical vehicle so suddenly sweeping those votes and voters away. Where then?
At the last election, there was a next-to-zero chance the Lib Dems would support Labour providing the Tories made a half-decent offer. Clegg had already said he'd base mandate on votes not seats (something it must be admitted he hasn't done this time), which could have had only one conclusion given that in a hung parliament it was almost certain that the Tories would have scored more votes. On top of which, too many in Labour simply weren't interested in a deal, Clegg wouldn't deal with Brown and Labour didn't have time to pick anyone else.
That was then. I can see that there is more of a case that 2015 is a coin-toss in terms of tactical support but such tossers are still hoping the coin will fall their way. The only way to be really sure is to vote for the party you support which at the least adds to the national total.
http://www.conservativehome.com/thetorydiary/2014/10/is-ukip-set-to-damage-labour-more-than-the-conservatives.html
We also know how much better LD incumbents are rated by voters compared with CON or LAB ones. YouGov polling last year had net dissatisfaction of 13% for CON MPs, 4% for LAB MPs and plus 13% for LD MPs.
The LDs are very skilled at marketing themselves as the best party to stop the Tories which is a real problem for the blues.
I'm a party member, and as such I'm required to support the party's candidates, as I think are you. But I can see the case for tactical voting. After all, you routinely urge the same on UKIP voters who think the Tories are a lesser evil to Labour. It's exactly the same dilemma.
It's possible to do a study, entirely rigorous, that Spurs lose more matches on Sundays than Saturdays. You might think this is spurious, but in fact it's possible to fixate on a reason: the Europa league games on Thursdays. Therefore, you could produce a study demonstrating how, unless Spurs stop playing on Thursdays, they will fail to perform to the mean of their Saturday performances. What's wrong with this? It ignores every other variable, every other factor, and makes massive assumptions about past performances. Similarly, Mike has taken one truism and latched onto it to the exclusion of all else. It's not even reliable as a past source, let alone the present and future.
1) In the last weekly poll, the Lib Dems tallied 8%.
2) In his last poll in Lib Dem/Conservative marginals, Lib Dems tallied 32%.
3) In his last poll in Labour/Conservative marginals, Lib Dems tallied 8%.
So unless the Lib Dem vote is collapsing in safe seats but not elsewhere (which is logically possible but intuitively highly unlikely), it seems to me that at least one of these findings must be wrong.
It is in part the reason that youngsters are going Green or Islamist. At least these philosophies attempt to project a vision of a better future (though not one that I agree with in either case).
David Cameron did attempt some of the broad brush vision in his speech, which is why it went down so well. I wonder if Clegg can do the same. Going negative can only go so far and puts off a lot of voters, particularly the young or female.
IndyRef was striking for the final weeks campaign which was all about how to keep the Tories out.
When did he tell you this?
A lot of rUK people who have been anti-Tory have a new party to dislike in UKIP.
Millions of women. No one reads the Mail for news, there's none in it.
I regularly browse the website, it's a freakshow,
He asked for some more rain so that he could live in a marsh again...
It's this bit in particular: "With relations between the coalition partners inevitably getting worse as we get nearer to polling day the easier it will be for the Lib Dems to win over more tacticals which is why I’m expecting the party do do better in terms of seats than even the latest Ashcroft polling suggests."
That sounds like wishful thinking to me. It also ignores any UKIP defectors returning to the Tories in these marginal seats.
"Seven in ten UKIP voters, including 87% of those defecting from the Conservatives, said they would rather have Cameron in Downing Street than Miliband. "
"Among Conservative switchers to UKIP, 80% wanted to see the Tories in government, including 68% who wanted an overall Conservative majority."
Yes, plenty won't. But plenty will. The Lib Dems are the most pro-europe and pro-immigration party around. Expect the Tories to play on that.
That you perceive parties to be for/anti particular things does not mean that their supporters see them in the same way.
I disagree (partly, at least). Labour continually attacks the character of their opposing party, and it sinks in over time. The Conservatives (and others) are no saints, but it seems systematic on the part of Labour, and sometimes others.
There are other factors. In Scotland, wallowing in victimhood over the Poll Tax and the burning hatred of Thatcher (be interesting to see if that recedes in the coming years). In the North, the closure of pits (more were closed by Wilson than Thatcher, of course, but there's little room for facts in the three minute hate). Hell, the left even had a catchy slogan with Thatcher the Milk Snatcher, even though most schoolkids (according to chaps who were at school at the time on a Sky paper review) were bloody glad to be rid of it.
You could argue it's the old head versus heart difference. The left gives hugs to make it all better, the right reinserts the dislocated joint, which bloody hurts. It's easy to paint the left as brainless and the right as heartless. So we end up with a regular wave pattern, whereby the right are mean and get voted out because they're so nasty, and the lovely left come in. And ruin the economy. And then people decide niceness can be dispensed with because they'd quite like a functioning economy. And so on.
By telling people to focus on their constituency you are sending the message "this is important, the choice you make really matters so think carefully". At most general elections most people vote on a more national basis / general perception / overall perspectives rather than closely thinking about the results in their specific constituency.
Clearly in the past the LibDems were good at educating Labour voters (helped by Labour soft-pedaling) to vote LibDem. OGH's thesis is that virtually *all* of these voters are well trained enough to ignore the national perspective. That seems implausible. I can certianly see the Lib Dems performing better in LD/Con marginals by winning a proportion of the Labour vote, but it doesn't feel like they will get all of it again.
Both said they would vote Conservative (Eagles in reality, RN hypothetically) rather than UKIP.
So vote Conservative get Labour.
It is increasingly apparent that establishment Tories who loudly demand that everyone votes for them in order to defeat Labour do not regard defeating Labour as important if it requires them to vote UKIP.
Establishment Tories and establishment Labour are in a symbiotic relationship. Both require fear of the other to motivate their supporters and both dread most of all the rise of another party, at present UKIP, which removes this fear and so spoils their cozy relationship.
"How to light a slow fuse that will ultimately destroy a party: become dependent on tactical voters. You lose all sense of identity and simply become reliant on pandering to Disgruntled of Elsewhere."
It's interesting in the light of the post from RochdaleP where he rightly says the Lib Dems are now indistinguishable from the Tories (if not worse) that whereas a Labour voter would vote Lib Dem to keep the Tory out there is little evidence that a Tory would vote Lib Dem to keep out Labour.
Yet more evidence in my book that the split is one of values not policy and however far the morals of the Dems have slipped over the last 4 years scratch the surface and they'll never be 'Graylings'
But what if this Texas Ebola outbreak isn't contained but spreads into the west? The impact on next year's General Election is negligible, but not non-existent. It's just a thought, a very unpleasant one: http://news.sky.com/story/1346136/us-has-list-of-100-contacts-of-ebola-patient
A scenario of Ebola pandemic doesn't bear thinking about, but it would certainly impact. Is there a market for no election to be held in May 2015?
thought I was the only one. ; )
Based on the constituency poll results, the LD are on course to lose 12 seats to the Tories.
On the other hand, they suffered quite badly in Cornwall and lost several strong seats to the Tories: Winchester, Oxford West & Abingdon, Montgomeryshire, Richmond Park and came within a whisker of losing Mid Dorset and North Poole. Some seats previously held in 2005 also ended up looking irrecoverable for them, such as Newbury and Guildford.
That was all on the back of the supposed Cleggasm.
It's one reason I've come round to PR: I'd much rather have coalitions formed after an election where parties have a clear mandate for their own platform than pseudo-coalitions formed beforehand. PR also negates both the need for and the effectiveness of tactical voting and so would encourage parties to push more positive messages.
OGH is very critical that the right doesn't vote tactically, while the left votes anti-Tory.
Personally I see that as the right voting for what they believe in (whether UKIP or Tory) which is a *good* thing (even if it may be less effective at winning in FPTP).
I won't vote UKIP, even though I have sympathy with some of UKIP's policies, because I don't want to see Farage anywhere near executive office.
By the way, is the consensus view that the correct way to write LibDem is or is not with a space after b? I've seen both routinely, and have a leaflet to edit where it comes up...
If their money is imperilled, or said to be imperilled, they will go for the safety option. Only if they are sure they can trust the opposition will they finally jump ship, no matter what they may tell pollsters when it doesn't matter.
And if you think the Conservatives and media won't expose Labour's recent record and proposals until they are raw to the bone then you're living in an alternate universe. Labour will only be trusted on the economy if the person at their helm seems trustworthy: hence Tony Blair and, for a brief period by default, Gordon Brown after John Major and Norman Lamont's Black Wednesday fiasco destroyed confidence in Conservative ability to run the economy for a generation. Can anyone on here, seriously, imagine the British people trusting Ed Miliband to run their affairs when it comes down to the vote? No, me neither.
This will be like 1992 all over again: Labour's tax bombshell.
"The Lib Dems gained in weak seats and declined in strong seats, which is rather curious and hard to explain. "
http://www.electoralcalculus.co.uk/trackrecord_10models.html
Mr. Bob, possibly, or perhaps they had a valid but differing opinion to yours.
Mr. Herdson, PR is the work of Satan. It diminishes democratic accountability by reducing manifesto promises to bargaining chips, and shifts the decision of who forms the next government from the people to the political class.
2. Answer, back in Glasgow for one last grand farewell?
Next time around it looks distinctly marginal, in fact I would say on current polling the SNP are favourites to take it. I really don't want that and am contemplating voting tactically for the first time in my life.
There is just one thing that's getting in the way, as Lilly Allen used to sing in a slightly different context. Actually 2 things. Firstly I understand the Labour candidate will again be Jim McGovern, a man who (a) thought it was appropriate and (b) morally correct to vote against gay marriage in England. And then there is the Ed thing.
Its not easy being a marginal voter.
But establishment Tories demand that UKIP supporters vote tactically Conservative when they have no intention of voting tactically UKIP to defeat Labour.
It seems to establishment Tories that its only important to keep Labour out of office if the beneficiaries are the Conservatives.
As the Conservatives have not shown they are worthy of a positive vote and as they aren't willing to vote tactically anti-Labour they have nobody to blame but themselves when people vote for other parties.
http://www.halfords.com/car-seats-travel-equipment/driving-accessories/car-headlamp-converters/halfords-headlamp-converters
Think the French gendarmes can be quite picky about it but it's a while since I did it.
The legal requirement now seems to be to 'not cause dazzle to oncoming drivers' rather than specifically to adjust/convert headlamp beam pattern' (AA), who nevertheless also do the kits:
http://shop.theaa.com/store/home/aa-headlamp-beam-converters
A Lib Dhimmie view on principles is to screw them for political advantage. Having no belief system to uphold I find this highly consistent with the duplicity they uphold.