Also should we be worried about the accuracy of Lord Ashcroft's marginal polling?
Yes.
This is a point I've made repeatedly. It's very hard to get the weightings right for a particular constituency. Even if you do, the random error on the sample sizes may well be more than the effect you're trying to measure (which is whether the constituency swings differ from the national average).
Farage not going to Heywood and Middleton on the day, as well as Labour not bombarding the constituency with activists and shadow ministers would suggest a massive on the day swing or a large on the day bout of apathy from Labour voters.
It was mentioned on here that there were big problems with Labour's local campaigning team in the seat.
The betting markets had no clue it would be that close, either.
For me, Heywood and Middleton showed there is such a thing as the anti-labour vote.
Lets apply that to Ed Miliband's own constituency, Donny North.
20k voted for him. Against that we have cons (8.7k), Libs (6.1) BNP (2.8) English dems (2.1) and UKIP (1.8).
If the same principles apply, ed miliband, the leader of the opposition, could be standing in a marginal....???
I think its proved more that there are Tories who will vote tactically
Yes, there were definite signs in Heywood that they are begining to get the hang of FPTP.
PtP, it's not as if they didn't understand FPTP before - but to vote tactically you need to have a plausible 2nd party that at least looks vaguely aligned with your own politics. The LD's came across as Labour-lite from 1993-2010 so it's unsurprising that Northern Tories continued to vote what-the-hell-I-know-they're-gonna-lose Tory.
Sure. It was a bit tongue in cheek, but they do have a bit of a reputation for tribal loyalty, which is good in one respect but a disadvantage if stopping the opposition is top priority.
It really is fascinating. The lib dems have some big, fat majorities. Kingston and Surbiton. Twickenham. Are these vulnerable?
Kingston is a probable hold as Davey has 7k majority, but there are underlying problems with the local LDs there. The Conservatives took control of the Council this year and won 7 seats, the LDs lost 9.
Twickenham to go Tory, please, please, please, please!
Only if the current 71 yr old incumbent decides that he is not up to being an MP through to 2020 when he will be approaching his 77th birthday (June).
He opposed a Catholic school opening in Twickenham to cope with the burgeoning Catholic population. I will go and help the Tories myself if they can remove Cable.
How can children be catholics? Or of any religion? They are not old enough to make up their minds.
You might as well open schools for Labour children, or Tory children.
The idea of adulthood is that we give people 18 years or more to decide upon these things, not daub them with our own view from age five.
Also should we be worried about the accuracy of Lord Ashcroft's marginal polling?
Both polls (Survation and Ashcroft) on Clacton were in the region of the result. Both polls in Heywood (Survation and Ashcroft) massively overstated the Labour vote and under-estimated the UKIP vote.
A great article which pretty much asks the unanswerable question for the Tories - why aren't these your voters? Aren't we benefiting from the fantastic recovering economy and millions of new jobs and prosperity and debt being paid off? What do you mean no? Off to UKIP with you, we don't need you loonies.
Its this simple. The economy is literally broken for millions of people in towns across the country. They see society as not much better, they feel let down and ignored by politicians who won't even recognise the mess never mind do anything about it.
These SHOULD be Labour votes to win. Except we don't seem to want to talk much about the broken economy apart from teeny bits of it - and we can't see a solution either.
OK so UKIP don't have a magic wand. They aren't offering instant utopia. But in appearing to be the man down the pub, hearing and understanding, and offering both an identity and a solution to a key driver for the mess, they are resonating with more and more people. Tories can't accept it because they believe the broken economy isn't broken. Labour can't accept it because they can't accept that so many people have petty bigotry and dislike multiculturalism. The LibDems are, well.
Its that people are surprised by UKIP thats the surprise.
I think the make-up of MP's in general may point to why they are surprised. MP's these days are not normal people as they go to university and mainly read a degree involving a good dollop of politics and then get non-jobs usually within politics for a few years.
I think Andrew Marr recently commented on this . He said years ago the Tory Mp's had 'had a good war or National service' , set up a business or profession and Labour Mp's had worked manually in factories/mines /the post etc .
None of those MP's would have been surprised at UKIP's rise or think that Farage had made a gaffe today talking about HIV sufferers coming for NHS treatment.
Farage not going to Heywood and Middleton on the day, as well as Labour not bombarding the constituency with activists and shadow ministers would suggest a massive on the day swing or a large on the day bout of apathy from Labour voters.
It was mentioned on here that there were big problems with Labour's local campaigning team in the seat.
The betting markets had no clue it would be that close, either.
Absolutely.
If Betfair had put its markets up sooner, we'd have had a field day. As it was, there was no way to bet on a close-run-thing.
It really is fascinating. The lib dems have some big, fat majorities. Kingston and Surbiton. Twickenham. Are these vulnerable?
Kingston is a probable hold as Davey has 7k majority, but there are underlying problems with the local LDs there. The Conservatives took control of the Council this year and won 7 seats, the LDs lost 9.
Twickenham to go Tory, please, please, please, please!
Only if the current 71 yr old incumbent decides that he is not up to being an MP through to 2020 when he will be approaching his 77th birthday (June).
He opposed a Catholic school opening in Twickenham to cope with the burgeoning Catholic population. I will go and help the Tories myself if they can remove Cable.
How can children be catholics? Or of any religion? They are not old enough to make up their minds.
You might as well open schools for Labour children, or Tory children.
The idea of adulthood is that we give people 18 years or more to decide upon these things, not daub them with our own view from age five.
Re: the speculation from PB Tories that Kip are going to damage Lab more than Con. I'm happy to be against that outcome in May, if you want charity bet, let's discuss.
My preferred charities are Amnesty and Shelter.
How many homeless people does Shelter provide a roof for?
If Betfair had put its markets up sooner, we'd have had a field day. As it was, there was no way to bet on a close-run-thing.
I bet on UKIP in H & M, at around 8/1. I'd like to be able to claim that this was clever and that I anticipated such a close result, but in fact it was intended as a trading bet, as I was expecting the odds to shorten when the Survation poll came out. Instead they lengthened, so I ended up with a value loser. Win some, lose some!
"Today we awake to find that Clacton has the same MP with the same views as it had before the by election, and to find that Labour has once again won the Heywood and Middleton seat. It’s a strange “earthquake” that leaves Parliament with the same voting balance on matters Eurosceptic, and one of the same people."
" Katwala's thesis is that Carswell is on a mission to "modernise" Ukip. Why? Because what Carswell really cares about is winning an in/out EU referendum and he recognises that, in its present state, Ukip is hurting the Eurosceptic cause. "
If Betfair had put its markets up sooner, we'd have had a field day. As it was, there was no way to bet on a close-run-thing.
I bet on UKIP in H & M, at around 8/1. I'd like to be able to claim that this was clever, but in fact it was intended as a trading bet, as I was expecting the odds to shorten when the Survation poll came out. Instead they lengthened, so I ended up with a value loser. Win some, lose some!
Also should we be worried about the accuracy of Lord Ashcroft's marginal polling?
Yes.
This is a point I've made repeatedly. It's very hard to get the weightings right for a particular constituency. Even if you do, the random error on the sample sizes may well be more than the effect you're trying to measure (which is whether the constituency swings differ from the national average).
Treat with caution.
Bugger. My strategy in the Lib/Con marginals is predicated on Lord Ashcroft's polls being right.
Also should we be worried about the accuracy of Lord Ashcroft's marginal polling?
Both polls (Survation and Ashcroft) on Clacton were in the region of the result. Both polls in Heywood (Survation and Ashcroft) massively overstated the Labour vote and under-estimated the UKIP vote.
Tactical voting? Shy Kippers?
Shy Kippers is an interesting possibility (although there are lots of others, equally plausible). You could make an argument that Tory to UKIP switchers aren't shy, but Labour to UKIP switchers are. (Which if it is true makes polling even more of a nightmare than it currently is anyway...)
Also should we be worried about the accuracy of Lord Ashcroft's marginal polling?
Yes.
This is a point I've made repeatedly. It's very hard to get the weightings right for a particular constituency. Even if you do, the random error on the sample sizes may well be more than the effect you're trying to measure (which is whether the constituency swings differ from the national average).
Treat with caution.
Bugger. My strategy in the Lib/Con marginals is predicated on Lord Ashcroft's polls being right.
He seems to have been most wrong for Labour though, particularly against UKIP. So Great Grimsby is perhaps looking an even better bet than before.
Nigel Farage has risked a rift with his party’s first MP after calling for people with HIV to be banned from settling in Britain.
Douglas Carswell, whose father Wilson was an Aids pioneer in the 1980s, today refused to back Mr Farage’s position, just hours after being elected to Westminster as MP for Clacton.
The row dominated a joint victory walkabout by both men through the Essex constituency.
Also should we be worried about the accuracy of Lord Ashcroft's marginal polling?
Both polls (Survation and Ashcroft) on Clacton were in the region of the result. Both polls in Heywood (Survation and Ashcroft) massively overstated the Labour vote and under-estimated the UKIP vote.
Tactical voting? Shy Kippers?
Shy Kippers is an interesting possibility (although there are lots of others, equally plausible). You could make an argument that Tory to UKIP switchers aren't shy, but Labour to UKIP switchers are. (Which if it is true makes polling even more of a nightmare than it currently is anyway...)
Like the Nats, shy is not an adjective applicable to the Kippers.
Nigel Farage has risked a rift with his party’s first MP after calling for people with HIV to be banned from settling in Britain.
Douglas Carswell, whose father Wilson was an Aids pioneer in the 1980s, today refused to back Mr Farage’s position, just hours after being elected to Westminster as MP for Clacton.
The row dominated a joint victory walkabout by both men through the Essex constituency.
Also should we be worried about the accuracy of Lord Ashcroft's marginal polling?
Both polls (Survation and Ashcroft) on Clacton were in the region of the result. Both polls in Heywood (Survation and Ashcroft) massively overstated the Labour vote and under-estimated the UKIP vote.
Tactical voting? Shy Kippers?
Shy Kippers is an interesting possibility (although there are lots of others, equally plausible). You could make an argument that Tory to UKIP switchers aren't shy, but Labour to UKIP switchers are. (Which if it is true makes polling even more of a nightmare than it currently is anyway...)
Like the Nats, shy is not an adjective applicable to the Kippers.
Activists I agree with you - voters I am much less convinced about.
Also should we be worried about the accuracy of Lord Ashcroft's marginal polling?
Both polls (Survation and Ashcroft) on Clacton were in the region of the result. Both polls in Heywood (Survation and Ashcroft) massively overstated the Labour vote and under-estimated the UKIP vote.
Tactical voting? Shy Kippers?
Shy Kippers is an interesting possibility (although there are lots of others, equally plausible). You could make an argument that Tory to UKIP switchers aren't shy, but Labour to UKIP switchers are. (Which if it is true makes polling even more of a nightmare than it currently is anyway...)
Like the Nats, shy is not an adjective applicable to the Kippers.
Activists I agree with you - voters I am much less convinced about.
As the Indyref showed there were more Shy Unionists despite what the Nats said.
Brook lands is the main road I was canvassing yesterday... The houses are basically holiday chalets from the 50s
One of the houses had the front door wide open with a speaker in the doorway facing out blaring eminem at full volume... I pointed at the Ukip badge and did a thumbs up/ down... I ended up going in there while the bloke , in his fifties, and his son were drinking beer smoking drugs saying they were from barking and voting national front!
The son said come round my mates I'll ask him who he's voting for, but mind the pitbull, I said it's ok I'll put him down as a maybe
Nigel Farage has risked a rift with his party’s first MP after calling for people with HIV to be banned from settling in Britain.
Douglas Carswell, whose father Wilson was an Aids pioneer in the 1980s, today refused to back Mr Farage’s position, just hours after being elected to Westminster as MP for Clacton.
The row dominated a joint victory walkabout by both men through the Essex constituency.
"...Those who vote in by-elections are atypical but they are hyper-political, which is why they are so clever about tactical voting. They are often ahead of the general population in their instincts and judgements because they pay so much attention to party politics.
They are, if you like, the canaries in the mine: the first to detect what is toxic in the political culture.
What they have shown definitively this time is that smearing Ukip is not the way to destroy its popular appeal. The electorate simply perceives that as contempt for its real concerns: one more illustration of what Douglas Carswell called the "cosy cartel" of Westminster government."
Brook lands is the main road I was canvassing yesterday... The houses are basically holiday chalets from the 50s
One of the houses had the front door wide open with a speaker in the doorway facing out blaring eminem at full volume... I pointed at the Ukip badge and did a thumbs up/ down... I ended up going in there while the bloke , in his fifties, and his son were drinking beer smoking drugs saying they were from barking and voting national front!
The son said come round my mates I'll ask him who he's voting for, but mind the pitbull, I said it's ok I'll put him down as a maybe
For me, Heywood and Middleton showed there is such a thing as the anti-labour vote.
Lets apply that to Ed Miliband's own constituency, Donny North.
20k voted for him. Against that we have cons (8.7k), Libs (6.1) BNP (2.8) English dems (2.1) and UKIP (1.8).
If the same principles apply, ed miliband, the leader of the opposition, could be standing in a marginal....???
I think its proved more that there are Tories who will vote tactically
In that scenario the issue is which anti-Ed candidate do the others coalesce around, and I can't see who it would be.
You presumably won't get the Libs lending their votes to any of the others. So while you might conceivably get the others to agree to support one unity candidate among the three of them, that candidate then doesn't have the votes necessary to dump Miliband. You'd get a result of Lab 20k, Anti-Lab 15k, and Libs 6k.
A seat like that, where the left is split between 3 parties and the right between two with one racist party each, must be pretty much invincible. Labour can lose only if the the non-Labour left and the right all agree to elect a candidate of the right.
I would only expect that result if the Lab candidate were someone really toxic, such as Tony Blair, so that the punters forgot their differences in order to punish a scumbag. Neil Hamilton was such a scumbag (and now very happy in UKIP), Farage appears to be another having lost five by-elections, but Miliband is just not toxic or hateable in the way all those were.
There's a strong case for sending some direct and immediate benefits to locales where housing is constructed (so bunging a few hundred quid to residents is a real legitimate way of doing it). And, of course, if the transport infrastructure (and other infrastructure) is sorted out as well, you'd find it far easier to fight the NIMBY feelings.
Obviously in my opinion the best way of doing this is through Land Value Tax - if the land value goes down (because of additional surrounding housing) then you pay less tax. If infrastructure improves (you get a new tube line) then you pay more tax for the privilege.
Oh, I fully agree. Also, tax on land is one of the hardest to dodge ("Land? What land? Oh ... this land, you mean?") and hardest to migrate away ("Right, that's it. I'm off to another country, and I'm taking my land with me!"). And, interestingly, the OECD did an empirical study across a number of countries and times to find out which taxes impact most (and least) on growth. By far the best (for minimal impact on growth) were taxes on immovable property and land.
Nigel Farage has risked a rift with his party’s first MP after calling for people with HIV to be banned from settling in Britain.
Douglas Carswell, whose father Wilson was an Aids pioneer in the 1980s, today refused to back Mr Farage’s position, just hours after being elected to Westminster as MP for Clacton.
The row dominated a joint victory walkabout by both men through the Essex constituency.
The failure there belongs to the political journalists. They're playing hunt-the-gaffe rather than looking at the voters.
Janet Daley has an interesting take:
"...Those who vote in by-elections are atypical but they are hyper-political, which is why they are so clever about tactical voting. They are often ahead of the general population in their instincts and judgements because they pay so much attention to party politics."
Those who vote in by-elections are exactly the same as other voters elsewhere, they just happen to live in a constituency which has a by-election. I'll grant they may have spent the last couple of weeks paying more attention to politics, but "hyper-political" and "so clever"? Utter bilge.
OK so UKIP don't have a magic wand. They aren't offering instant utopia. But in appearing to be the man down the pub, hearing and understanding, and offering both an identity and a solution to a key driver for the mess, they are resonating with more and more people. Tories can't accept it because they believe the broken economy isn't broken. Labour can't accept it because they can't accept that so many people have petty bigotry and dislike multiculturalism. The LibDems are, well.
Its that people are surprised by UKIP thats the surprise.
So far UKIP is following the LibDem script of varying the message according to the seat, while not actually intending to implement ti.
Thus they talked left wing in Labour seats and right wing in Tory ones. This worked well for the LibDems right up to the point power was on offer. At that point they shafted all their left wing support by joining the Tories and shafted their right wing support by being even nastier than Labour. They now face wipeout.
If you have no actual beliefs and merely want power, you're going to get rumbled eventually.
Apropos of nothing, I grew up near Clacton. I'm very familiar with the area, including Jaywick, and can confirm that it's been rundown for as long as I can remember. That said, on recent visits, it's worse than it was. Clacton has definitely taken a tumble over the last decade or two. They had a decent holiday camp there for quite some time but could never support one now. I'm still fond of the place, but it's not what it once was. (Frinton's always been like that, though!)
And I am not sure it´s a gaffe. The great and the good are scandalised. The riff raff are supporting.
What other illnesses would you apply it to? TB? Diabetes? Cancer? Why just HIV?
Because HIV continues to be, especially among people of a certain age, associated with specific lifestyle choices
If you were to say AIDS And TB yes, cancer and diabetes No, I wonder what the reasoning might be?
Old people [disproportionately] get cancer and diabetes. Old people vote. Very bad idea to demonise those conditions.
TB is mostly brought into the country by brown people, and AIDS is caused by those dreadful, precipitation-inducing gays and those druggies, half of which are east european. Jackpot!
[Warning: this comment may contain excessive sarcasm and cynicism]
Apropos of nothing, I grew up near Clacton. I'm very familiar with the area, including Jaywick, and can confirm that it's been rundown for as long as I can remember. That said, on recent visits, it's worse than it was. Clacton has definitely taken a tumble over the last decade or two. They had a decent holiday camp there for quite some time but could never support one now. I'm still fond of the place, but it's not what it once was. (Frinton's always been like that, though!)
Bits of Frinton looked “less good” the last time I was there.
So I guess Douglas Carswell will now sit on the other side of the house - is there any precedent for where he should take his spot ?
His voting pattern will be interesting - how did he vote on the last 4 budgets and which way will he vote this year ?
There's an area for "other parties" on the right side of the opposition benches - Green, DUP, SNP and so on. They don't have a front bench position though.
You can't compare Norway, Sweden, Denmark and Switzerland - countries of <10 million - with the US. You also need to adjust for PPP because the cost of living is cheap in the USA and hideously expensive in Scandinavia and Switzerland.
It's Western Europe that has endless numbers of crappy places. Have you ever been to Stoke or Bradford?
It was the interviewer that brought up HIV, for Christ's sake. The idea that it has specifically been chosen by Farage as a dog-whistle is nonsense.
If Farage is nasty and bigoted because he has some sympathy with this idea, then presumably those people think the same of the around 50 other countries that have restrictions on HIV people staying for 90 days (including Germany) or the dozen or so countries that have an absolute bar on HIV positive travellers (including Singapore).
And I am not sure it´s a gaffe. The great and the good are scandalised. The riff raff are supporting.
What other illnesses would you apply it to? TB? Diabetes? Cancer? Why just HIV?
Because HIV continues to be, especially among people of a certain age, associated with specific lifestyle choices
Or surely more likely, (and less of an angry Tory smear) because cancer, diabetes etc. are not transmittable? TB is another story -this country had all but eliminated TB, and mass immigration has brought it back.
Shadsy will NOT be popular amongst PBTories. He is forgetting the PBTory mantra that UKIP hurts Labour just as much as the Tories.
I would generally agree with the list. But Spelthorne ? That's my neck of the woods !
That said I kindly offered to bet myself yet strangely none of them took me up on it!
The Flounce Factor.
Much safer to wager with an established bookmaker. Hills aren't in the habit of closing their shops, only to reopen them a week later as 'Paddy Ladbroke' or 'Princess Leia Bet'.
Shadsy will NOT be popular amongst PBTories. He is forgetting the PBTory mantra that UKIP hurts Labour just as much as the Tories.
I would generally agree with the list. But Spelthorne ? That's my neck of the woods !
That said I kindly offered to bet myself yet strangely none of them took me up on it!
The Flounce Factor.
Much safer to wager with an established bookmaker. Hills aren't in the habit of closing their shops, only to reopen them a week later as 'Paddy Ladbroke' or 'Princess Leia Bet'.
And I am not sure it´s a gaffe. The great and the good are scandalised. The riff raff are supporting.
What other illnesses would you apply it to? TB? Diabetes? Cancer? Why just HIV?
Because HIV continues to be, especially among people of a certain age, associated with specific lifestyle choices
If you were to say AIDS And TB yes, cancer and diabetes No, I wonder what the reasoning might be?
Well it could be that you don't like poor people from Africa.
Or it could be that AIDS and TB are communicable
It might be that you don't blame diabetics for failure to control their behaviour but you do blame AIDS victims for the same.
But in essence Farage is blowing a loud dog whistle and then lots of UKIP supporters scurry around trying to prove it wasn't a dog whistle because it wasn't meant to mean what people intepreted it as. But they ignore th fact that most people don't read PB and will just hear the whistle.
(If he had said that new immigrants shouldn't have free access to the NHS for a number of years that would have been entirely respectable. Aiming to restrict immigration by implying that foreigners are sick and nasty is, well, just sick and nasty).
And I am not sure it´s a gaffe. The great and the good are scandalised. The riff raff are supporting.
What other illnesses would you apply it to? TB? Diabetes? Cancer? Why just HIV?
Because HIV continues to be, especially among people of a certain age, associated with specific lifestyle choices
Or surely more likely, (and less of an angry Tory smear) because cancer, diabetes etc. are not transmittable? TB is another story -this country had all but eliminated TB, and mass immigration has brought it back.
There is already TB screening for immigrants from 3rd world countries - as I'd expect someone with a claimed professional knowledge of the healthcare industry to know. Just as I'd expect them to know that HIV is objectively correlated to a very high degree indeed with certain "specific lifestyle choices".
Hilarious to see the usual suspects feeling over a Farage edict for the opportunities for outrage they just know it must have packaged somewhere in it.
Shadsy will NOT be popular amongst PBTories. He is forgetting the PBTory mantra that UKIP hurts Labour just as much as the Tories.
I would generally agree with the list. But Spelthorne ? That's my neck of the woods !
That said I kindly offered to bet myself yet strangely none of them took me up on it!
The Flounce Factor.
Much safer to wager with an established bookmaker. Hills aren't in the habit of closing their shops, only to reopen them a week later as 'Paddy Ladbroke' or 'Princess Leia Bet'.
Shadsy will NOT be popular amongst PBTories. He is forgetting the PBTory mantra that UKIP hurts Labour just as much as the Tories.
I would generally agree with the list. But Spelthorne ? That's my neck of the woods !
That said I kindly offered to bet myself yet strangely none of them took me up on it!
The Flounce Factor.
Much safer to wager with an established bookmaker. Hills aren't in the habit of closing their shops, only to reopen them a week later as 'Paddy Ladbroke' or 'Princess Leia Bet'.
Point 1. The Conservative vote in Heywood and Middleton was considerably more than Labour's margin of victory -selfish Tories putting party before country and splitting the right and letting Labour in. Hypocrites who demand right wing solidarity when it suits them. Vote Conservative get Labour.
Point 2. UKIP need to vigorously investigate any suggestion of postal voting fraud in Heywood & Middleton, and demand steps be taken if necessary.
Well done Isam and anyone else who helped UKIP last night.
And I am not sure it´s a gaffe. The great and the good are scandalised. The riff raff are supporting.
What other illnesses would you apply it to? TB? Diabetes? Cancer? Why just HIV?
Because HIV continues to be, especially among people of a certain age, associated with specific lifestyle choices
If you were to say AIDS And TB yes, cancer and diabetes No, I wonder what the reasoning might be?
Well it could be that you don't like poor people from Africa.
Or it could be that AIDS and TB are communicable
It might be that you don't blame diabetics for failure to control their behaviour but you do blame AIDS victims for the same.
But in essence Farage is blowing a loud dog whistle and then lots of UKIP supporters scurry around trying to prove it wasn't a dog whistle because it wasn't meant to mean what people intepreted it as. But they ignore th fact that most people don't read PB and will just hear the whistle.
(If he had said that new immigrants shouldn't have free access to the NHS for a number of years that would have been entirely respectable. Aiming to restrict immigration by implying that foreigners are sick and nasty is, well, just sick and nasty).
And I am not sure it´s a gaffe. The great and the good are scandalised. The riff raff are supporting.
What other illnesses would you apply it to? TB? Diabetes? Cancer? Why just HIV?
Because HIV continues to be, especially among people of a certain age, associated with specific lifestyle choices
Or surely more likely, (and less of an angry Tory smear) because cancer, diabetes etc. are not transmittable? TB is another story -this country had all but eliminated TB, and mass immigration has brought it back.
So what do you want to do with all the. Brits with HIV? Lock them up?
And I am not sure it´s a gaffe. The great and the good are scandalised. The riff raff are supporting.
What other illnesses would you apply it to? TB? Diabetes? Cancer? Why just HIV?
Because HIV continues to be, especially among people of a certain age, associated with specific lifestyle choices
Or surely more likely, (and less of an angry Tory smear) because cancer, diabetes etc. are not transmittable? TB is another story -this country had all but eliminated TB, and mass immigration has brought it back.
So what do you want to do with all the. Brits with HIV? Lock them up?
I'm excusing this aberrant nonsense on the basis that you're profoundly shocked by the march of UKIP. I hope you feel better soon.
Comments
This is a point I've made repeatedly. It's very hard to get the weightings right for a particular constituency. Even if you do, the random error on the sample sizes may well be more than the effect you're trying to measure (which is whether the constituency swings differ from the national average).
Treat with caution.
Gotta dash now. Laters.
http://www.rightmove.co.uk/property-for-sale/property-32532339.html
The property is subject to an Assured Shorthold Tenancy producing £433 per calendar month.
13% yield ?!
Sounds extraordinarily high !
If Betfair had put its markets up sooner, we'd have had a field day. As it was, there was no way to bet on a close-run-thing.
Red Cableistas :-)
Lab + LibD + SNP or Con + LibD + UKIP/DUP as only ways to get a majority
(For simplicity ignore Lab+LibD+DUP/UKIP although possible)
http://johnredwoodsdiary.com/2014/10/10/no-change-in-by-elections/
"Today we awake to find that Clacton has the same MP with the same views as it had before the by election, and to find that Labour has once again won the Heywood and Middleton seat. It’s a strange “earthquake” that leaves Parliament with the same voting balance on matters Eurosceptic, and one of the same people."
http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/tobyyoung/100289174/can-douglas-carswell-drag-ukip-into-the-21st-century/
" Katwala's thesis is that Carswell is on a mission to "modernise" Ukip. Why? Because what Carswell really cares about is winning an in/out EU referendum and he recognises that, in its present state, Ukip is hurting the Eurosceptic cause. "
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jaywick#People_and_housing
"... is there any precedent for where he should take his spot ? "
Does the chamber have a "naughty step"?
http://www.vebra.com/details/property/2663/24597757
You'd still have to pay me to live there.
Neil that early payment discount offer is still available.
http://politicalbookie.wordpress.com/2014/10/10/how-many-seats-will-ukip-win-next-year/
You mean Carswell is a CCHQ spinner.
One of the houses had the front door wide open with a speaker in the doorway facing out blaring eminem at full volume... I pointed at the Ukip badge and did a thumbs up/ down... I ended up going in there while the bloke , in his fifties, and his son were drinking beer smoking drugs saying they were from barking and voting national front!
The son said come round my mates I'll ask him who he's voting for, but mind the pitbull, I said it's ok I'll put him down as a maybe
One political punter has just had £2,500 on Labour to win Heywood by-election at 1/50. Will return a profit of £50. Easy money?
Last night's result demonstrates the perils of betting at 1-50 I think !
David Aaronovitch, columnist for The Times
tweets: "By the way, I am prepared to bet that @DouglasCarswell will not be in UKIP at the election after next."
Doesn't give out the odds though. :-(
Janet Daley has an interesting take:
"...Those who vote in by-elections are atypical but they are hyper-political, which is why they are so clever about tactical voting. They are often ahead of the general population in their instincts and judgements because they pay so much attention to party politics.
They are, if you like, the canaries in the mine: the first to detect what is toxic in the political culture.
What they have shown definitively this time is that smearing Ukip is not the way to destroy its popular appeal. The electorate simply perceives that as contempt for its real concerns: one more illustration of what Douglas Carswell called the "cosy cartel" of Westminster government."
http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/janetdaley/100289178/a-story-of-two-by-elections/
You presumably won't get the Libs lending their votes to any of the others. So while you might conceivably get the others to agree to support one unity candidate among the three of them, that candidate then doesn't have the votes necessary to dump Miliband. You'd get a result of Lab 20k, Anti-Lab 15k, and Libs 6k.
A seat like that, where the left is split between 3 parties and the right between two with one racist party each, must be pretty much invincible. Labour can lose only if the the non-Labour left and the right all agree to elect a candidate of the right.
I would only expect that result if the Lab candidate were someone really toxic, such as Tony Blair, so that the punters forgot their differences in order to punish a scumbag. Neil Hamilton was such a scumbag (and now very happy in UKIP), Farage appears to be another having lost five by-elections, but Miliband is just not toxic or hateable in the way all those were.
And, interestingly, the OECD did an empirical study across a number of countries and times to find out which taxes impact most (and least) on growth. By far the best (for minimal impact on growth) were taxes on immovable property and land.
http://www.bygonebutlins.com/
But it smeIIs of something.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/sport/rugbyunion/international/australia/11153282/Australian-rugby-in-turmoil-with-Ewen-McKenzie-denying-affair-with-official-as-Kurtley-Beale-text-row-deepens.html
Janet Daley has an interesting take:
"...Those who vote in by-elections are atypical but they are hyper-political, which is why they are so clever about tactical voting. They are often ahead of the general population in their instincts and judgements because they pay so much attention to party politics."
*snip*
http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/janetdaley/100289178/a-story-of-two-by-elections/Janet is talking out of her arse.
Those who vote in by-elections are exactly the same as other voters elsewhere, they just happen to live in a constituency which has a by-election. I'll grant they may have spent the last couple of weeks paying more attention to politics, but "hyper-political" and "so clever"? Utter bilge.
Thus they talked left wing in Labour seats and right wing in Tory ones. This worked well for the LibDems right up to the point power was on offer. At that point they shafted all their left wing support by joining the Tories and shafted their right wing support by being even nastier than Labour. They now face wipeout.
If you have no actual beliefs and merely want power, you're going to get rumbled eventually.
http://democracy.rochdale.gov.uk/mgElectionAreaResults.aspx?ID=100&RPID=1839741
Clacton was down 8,000
H&M was down 17,500
LOL
Clacton has definitely taken a tumble over the last decade or two. They had a decent holiday camp there for quite some time but could never support one now.
I'm still fond of the place, but it's not what it once was.
(Frinton's always been like that, though!)
http://www.tendringdc.gov.uk/council/elections-voting/clacton-constituency-parliamentary-election
TB is mostly brought into the country by brown people, and AIDS is caused by those dreadful, precipitation-inducing gays and those druggies, half of which are east european. Jackpot!
[Warning: this comment may contain excessive sarcasm and cynicism]
I would generally agree with the list. But Spelthorne ? That's my neck of the woods !
Pump prices have fallen by 6% on average from September 2013 to September 2014.
That said I kindly offered to bet myself yet strangely none of them took me up on it!
"If X happens than Y and Z will occur and this will spell disaster for Ed Miliband"
You can't compare Norway, Sweden, Denmark and Switzerland - countries of <10 million - with the US. You also need to adjust for PPP because the cost of living is cheap in the USA and hideously expensive in Scandinavia and Switzerland.
It's Western Europe that has endless numbers of crappy places. Have you ever been to Stoke or Bradford?
You cheeky monkey ;-)
http://www.bloomberg.com/energy/
Much safer to wager with an established bookmaker. Hills aren't in the habit of closing their shops, only to reopen them a week later as 'Paddy Ladbroke' or 'Princess Leia Bet'.
Perhaps the Cameroons could clarify.
Or it could be that AIDS and TB are communicable
It might be that you don't blame diabetics for failure to control their behaviour but you do blame AIDS victims for the same.
But in essence Farage is blowing a loud dog whistle and then lots of UKIP supporters scurry around trying to prove it wasn't a dog whistle because it wasn't meant to mean what people intepreted it as. But they ignore th fact that most people don't read PB and will just hear the whistle.
(If he had said that new immigrants shouldn't have free access to the NHS for a number of years that would have been entirely respectable. Aiming to restrict immigration by implying that foreigners are sick and nasty is, well, just sick and nasty).
Very afraid.
Hilarious to see the usual suspects feeling over a Farage edict for the opportunities for outrage they just know it must have packaged somewhere in it.
Nice enough chap, from London I think. Used to post here but he left saying he wouldn't post again I seem to recall.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-norfolk-29552557 !
Point 1. The Conservative vote in Heywood and Middleton was considerably more than Labour's margin of victory -selfish Tories putting party before country and splitting the right and letting Labour in. Hypocrites who demand right wing solidarity when it suits them. Vote Conservative get Labour.
Point 2. UKIP need to vigorously investigate any suggestion of postal voting fraud in Heywood & Middleton, and demand steps be taken if necessary.
Well done Isam and anyone else who helped UKIP last night.
*innocent face*
Latest Populus VI: Lab 35 (-2), Con 34 (+3), LD 9 (+1), UKIP 13 (-2), Oth 9 (+1).
What 'suggestions' are you talking about? There aren't any such suggestions.