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For ICM’s Wisdom Index those sampled are not not asked who they’d vote for but to give their predictions of party %ages, At GE15 it was sai to have been more accurate than any other poll.
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Ladbrokes halved UKIPs braintree odds at lunchtime.
http://www.oddschecker.com/politics/british-politics/braintree/winning-party/bet-history/ukip/today
Incidentally, my pre-race piece on Russia's race is here:
http://enormo-haddock.blogspot.co.uk/2014/10/russia-pre-race.html
I must try and remember penalties better in the future.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Braintree_(UK_Parliament_constituency)
2015 to be FPTP's swansong?
@Pong's highlighted an article on the last thread, on the s***storm surrounding Alex Day - if you don't know who he is, and why he matters, it's worth having a readaround. The allegations that are flying around the current crop of young virtual "stars" are becoming a kind of Gen 2.0 counterpoint to the re-emergence of 70s scandals that the media are eating themselves with at the moment. There's some nuance in that - which Pong's article well reflects - but it's impossible to avoid the similarities.
Now if your stomach can take it, there is an excellent article archived by the Guardian from 2001, concerning the fall of Jonathan King. King clearly felt he'd fallen into a grey and nuanced area, with his systematic modes of entrapping his young fans during "market research". Of course the Law felt otherwise, that a line had been crossed, and King had to pay a high price for it. One reason I think Pong's article is of general interest, is that it highlights some aspects of teenage life that parents may find unsettling. The fact that today's virtual stars are more accessible - just the push of a button away - to their 15 and 16 year old fans, and more likely to interact, than King's generation were, ought to be of concern. But the routinised methodology, pretty much down to a typed script of "seduction", is uncannily reminiscent.
And then we come to 2011 and a shockingly unrepentant interview in the Indy. Less quease-inducing as the fine detail is skipped over, but an awareness of the background of the conviction makes King's self-justification even more troubling. He hits back at the terms of his punishment: being on the sex offenders register means he "cannot discover and nurture a new Peter Gabriel, or a Joni Mitchell, or a Prince, should they be under 18." And yet all is not lost. "Because I think I'm still quite good at spotting things. I have my protégé at the moment, Alex Day."
King was a mentor to Day, helped him make the transition from a purely "virtual" star, to one who reached out into the wider world - radio play, chart success.
The relationship between Alex Day and Jonathan King has been little-remarked, in fact I've seen no reference to it anywhere in press coverage of the Day controversy: I suspect simply because those aware of the existence of one, know little to nothing about the other. Two utterly different generations, and cultures, after all. But the way two of our current socio-cultural convulsings come so close together really made me sit up when I first realised it..
If HYUFD local description of Braintree is accurate, then it's just a typical Essex seat that UKIP does very good at.
I put the wining post there at 35%, which is doable for only the Tories and UKIP.
UKIP by contrast are on an average of 16% (15% in ICM, 17% in Omnium) ie the same total the LDs got in 1997 when they won more than 40 seats. The Greens are on 4% with Omnium, still 3% up on 2010
At GE15 it was sai to have been more accurate than any other poll.
Should that say GE10 not GE15 (PS there is a typo as well 'sai'(d))
Lab 327
Con 249
LD 45
UKIP 0
The most disproportional election in UK history, and probably the most disproportional in the "democratic" world....
For example no one who has followed the opinion polls and the results since 2010 thinks that the LD will retain almost all their seats next year.
The Wisdom survey is of course methodological bollocks regardless of when it was taken.
http://www.conservativehome.com/platform/2014/10/lord-ashcroft-the-by-election-that-shows-why-polls-are-not-predictions.html
Who could justify such an outcome?
"For example no one who has followed the opinion polls and the results since 2010 thinks that the LD will retain almost all their seats next year."
Lord Ashcroft Heywood poll:
Q1
LAB 24%
UKIP 17%
CON 7%
LD 2%
GR 2%
DK 35%
Not vote 13%
All certain to vote (10/10) 47% (actual turnout 36%)
LAB 32%
UKIP 23%
CON 8%
GR 3%
LD 1%
DK 46%
So the DK's did it.
PR is a recipe for compromise, weak government, permanent coalitions and general nonsense.
Lab 262
Con 240
LD 60
UKIP 60
And as you say, he's hardly about to nurture the next Peter Gabriel. He's down at the level of promoting Alex Day and Tom Milsom (who's got his own scandal unfolding, though it had less publicity in the mainstream press than Alex Day did).
Heywood's labour polling forecast a 19% lead with 47% and Labour actually got 41% of the vote on the day a drop of 6% on polling.
Applying a 4% to 6% polling error for Labour at the GE would of course be quite wrong .... but fun!
Do Labour have a problem with lying or lazy voters?
FPTP does not guarantee strong government but makes it far likelier than PR, which shifts government-forming power from the people to the political class.
But then we're both brought up in a liberal tradition.
Incidentally, from the thread post:
"For ICM’s Wisdom Index those sampled are not not asked who they’d vote for but to give their predictions of party %ages, At GE10 it was said to have been more accurate than any other poll."
I've heard this claim often, does anyone know the original source? Presumably an ICM press release or something, but has anyone ever seen the tables or even headline VI from the 2010 Wisdom Index? Not that I think ICM would lie, but just for verification.
Now that would meet the definition of "general nonsense"...
The Tories and LD are mostly the same on policy now, so are Social Democrats with Christian Democrats. Almost all centre-left and centre right parties have no major policy differences.
http://www.independent.co.uk/environment/quagga-mussels-most-dangerous-alien-species-found-in-reservoir-near-heathrow-airport-9789069.html
Wikipedia confirms:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quagga
I can recall reading , years ago, a novel in which the chief character opined that people in England were either Roundhead or Cavalier, and that when the chips were down one knew, instinctively, on which side one was.
Me. I'm Roundhead. Or more probably Leveller!
https://www.mrs.org.uk/pdf/IJMR_54_(4)_Boon.pdf
It was as accurate as ICM's normal poll in 2010 and followed the ICM normal poll closely until mid 2011, after that it diverged and there were concerns by Boon as to why starting from page 10, I highlight this:
"Prompting with the previous Liberal Democrat
election share has the effect of pushing up their Wisdom share of the
vote prediction in both the general election pre-test and post-election
tracker tests. There is little evidence to explain why this might be, but
we might speculate that there is a lower level of general understanding
about previous Liberal Democrat performance"
Speedy Agreed
"We can only speculate as to why the predictions were so poor, but
Surowiecki (2004) again offers clues. He suggests that there must be
at least some information for the crowds to be smart, citing the likely
inability of a group of children to buy and sell stocks in Thiokol in the
way that traders successfully managed after the Challenger disaster. Here,
we cannot assume that the crowd had sufficient information to evaluate
the referendum outcome adequately."
Kind of hinges on what's happening to the Lib Dem vote shirley?
Therefore their true significance lies in how their score affects the results in the 150 or so seats that will 'make' the election result.
Because however unfair PR may appear to LD and UKIP supporters, it's the electoral reality.
Brutally the result of the election will depend upon how UKIP changes the result in Labour/Tory marginals and in the South West, Essex, Hertfordshire and Kent.
May 2015 will be a nightmare for psephologists - and an opportunity for those prepared to bet rationally on a seat by seat basis.
If you want to change the system go with the French one with two rounds of voting the second round being the top two in vote tallies
Sounds attractive, I must admit! Particularly the latter!
http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg22429903.400-gamers-polled-on-xbox-can-predict-us-election-results.html#.VDl61_ldVMw
Despite giving Labour a 7pt lead more people now expect the Conservatives to win the next election than Labour. This is a reversal of the finding when the question was asked last year.
http://www.theguardian.com/politics/2014/oct/11/labour-lead-over-tories-poll-conservatives-election
Or a Beer Hall, perhaps?
For instance what if a party or candidate moved towards xbox gamer friendly policies and away from non xbox gamer friendly policies. They will jump in support from gamers but slump among everyone else.
To make it closer to Britain, it's like doing a poll in the TUC conference floor and use that as a proxy for the general election.
Ranters are like the Cathars; what is written was written by their enemies.
Ranters were a revolutionary NonConformist sect, who believed in the direct experience of God, and believed that Priests were deceivers.
It is all phrased in religious rather than political terms (as were a lot of 17th Century discussions) but in many ways a similar disillusion with the established order to todays political disenchantment..
I know they try to weight this out, but I'm not entirely convinced that they actually manage it.