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politicalbetting.com » Blog Archive » The best guide to GE15 will come from single constituency polls NOT the national surveys and the seat calculators
Rather than the focus being on national polls from which we can project seat numbers we are seeing an avalanche of constituency polls coming mostly from Lord Ashcroft and initiatives funded by wealthy UKIP donors.
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On F1: Texas is a bit hard to call. Some fast bits, some twisty bits. Could be nip and tuck between Red Bull and Williams. McLaren are on the up, and betting against Force India is something I'll have my eye on.
Sadly, there's a week and a half or so until the season resumes. For some reason there's a three week gap from Russia to America, then we have back-to-back races.
Extra bit: just discovered, via Twitter, there's the first of a four part documentary on Rome at 8pm on Friday, Channel 5. Hopefully it'll finish ahead of Supermodels of SHIELD.
Leaving aside questions of artistic merit. I would expect to see a cartoon like this in the Guardian or Independent. It reminds me of similar cartoons in the 80s/90s about the Tories.
When will they (it seems I have to include OGH in "they") get it that this sort of thing just comes across as an elite trying to sneer at and put down lower orders who are trying to get above their station, and therefore just increases the vote for UKIP?
Another sign of an increasingly worried establishment.
This is what Wells said in response to the latest batch of Ashcroft polls last week:
"Earlier in the week we also had a fresh lot of Ashcroft marginals polls that I didn’t get chance to look at – details are here. This batch were back to Con-Lab marginals, in this case those seats with majorities between 3.1% and 4.8%, so needing a swing between 1.6% and 2.5%. These are still seats that on current national polling should fall to Labour, though given there is variation between the swing in different seats they are not such easy pickings as the ultra-marginals in Ashcroft’s previous polls (in one of the seats polled – Pudsey – Ashcroft found Labour and the Conservatives equal).
The average swing across the eleven seats polled was 5%, the equivalent of a 3% Labour lead in national polls. The average position in the national polls when this fieldwork was being done (10th September – 3rd October) was a 3.6% Labour lead, so once again the difference between the swing in the marginal seats and the swing in the national polls is tiny."
http://ukpollingreport.co.uk/blog/archives/9027#comments
The results of GE 2015 may well be more complex, more idiosyncratic and more diverse than we have seen since 1945. As a punter, I'm deeply aware that close scrutiny of each individual constituency is likely to be necessary to achieve satisfactory results. It won't be enough just to wet one's finger and stick it in the air to see which way the wind is blowing.
It may be blowing in several directions at once.
https://www.betfair.com/exchange/market?marketId=1.115707446
Try and put in the 2010 vote shares into the 2010 GE election calculator. Or even the 2005 vs 2005 calculator. And that was with a more "traditional" party set up.
God only knows why anyone takes the blindest bit of difference to them. Probably because it´s easy to understand and there is nothing else out there.
Time to bin Baxter, or at least such as it is now.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-oxfordshire-29704117
Because we're pro immigration and because we have no idea of how immigration affects this country.
I met Conrad Black and Max Hastings nearly two decades ago, does that count?
I also met my mate's lizard over the weekend, I think Tap would say that counts as well.
I'd suspect an internal poll, but any poll conducted before the Tories have picked a candidate would be of limited use.
People who want to buy a £2m house generally want to buy it because of the location, size, design, etc. I suspect not many people able to buy a £2m house will be put off by a £3k per year tax (much like how people still buy houses in higher stamp duty brackets). And if some are, then so what? House prices have trebled in the last 16 years, if they go down a bit (not that I think they will) that's not a big problem.
As for people who are emotionally attached to homes. Firstly, equity release. No-one who has lived in their home for 5+ years will have to sell it - the increase in value will make equity release solve their mansion tax indefinitely. Secondly, whilst I do sympathise, quite frankly there are worse things than being forced to cash in an asset you are emotionally attached to. It's not the end of the world if some widows have to move house. Plenty of people have been forced out of their areas by rising house prices and rents.
(They were very good to their Mum.)
All three wheels may yet fall off.
It should be something that can reasonably trivially be run in-browser in JavaScript. It would be a fascinating project for someone. I'd probably be capable of the coding, but don't know enough of the statistics or have enough of a polling background to write anything useful.
(obligatory "have you met the elite?": yes, I've met Cameron. Astonishingly plausible and likeable; you're reminded of why people voted for him before familiarity set in.)
Will that be Labour´s official line. We can then compare to the manufactured outrage over the spare room subsidy.
'Welsh patients receive a second-class health service, UK Health Secretary Jeremy Hunt has claimed.'
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-wales-politics-29708982
Never Cameron, but I did sit right behind him on a train: he was chit-chatting to Goldsmith in the aisle by the doors.
What would you make of this constituency for example?
2010 Result: Boston & Skegness
Conservative: 21325 (49.4%)
Labour: 8899 (20.6%)
Lib Dem: 6371 (14.8%)
BNP: 2278 (5.3%)
UKIP: 4081 (9.5%)
Independent: 171 (0.4%)
MAJORITY: 12426 (28.8%)
You won't get better than 4/7 UKIP now. How would you get that from your spreadsheet?
I'm afraid that for the most part we're going to have to rely mainly on that supercomputer found between the ears.
Douglas Carswell MP ✔ @DouglasCarswell
Big corporate parties have cooked up a deal to ensure bogus recall ..... #frontbenchFix
Cameron could win in 2015 if he took EU withdrawal seriously … but he won’t
http://blogs.spectator.co.uk/coffeehouse/2014/10/cameron-could-win-in-2015-if-he-were-serious-about-europe-but-he-isnt/
UKIP are in danger of sounding like Occupy Parliament. And if the Conservatives are so damned wrong and evil and filled with woe and doom why was Carswell happy to be a member of the party and MP for them until very recently when he coincidentally realised he was more a UKIP sort of chap, just as UKIP was doing tremendously well in the polls?
I wonder if he was on his way to Dulwich that day.
And the British housing market is very emotional.
I don't say that these things can't be changed, but I do say that Ed Balls is not a person capable of doing so.
''Anthony Wells has said repeatedly that there is no material difference in swing between Lord Ashcroft's individual seat polls and the national polls.... 'Earlier in the week we also had a fresh lot of Ashcroft marginals polls ... in this case those seats with majorities between 3.1% and 4.8%, so needing a swing between 1.6% and 2.5%... The average swing across the eleven seats polled was 5%, the equivalent of a 3% Labour lead in national polls. The average position in the national polls when this fieldwork was being done (10th September – 3rd October) was a 3.6% Labour lead, so once again the difference between the swing in the marginal seats and the swing in the national polls is tiny.' ''
So its clear that Mr Wells, who we must regard as a poling expert, is completely contradicting Mr S and others who are experts in betting. Clearly on the face of it and despite what Mr S says, there is nothing to be gleaned from these Ashcroft polls - except his average Labour lead is actually lower than the national polls. What they do is allow Mr Ashcroft to comment and opinionate and be quoted and have his quotes used to pressurise and influence the Tory Party.
My 2-penneth says that we are seeing the long spell of LibDems as a protest vote and anti Blair vote unwinding. This has been made worse by them still acting like a protest party even though they are the ones actually making the decisions. Greens and UKIP are taking their place.
I'm less convinced of the merits of UNS now, simply because of the scale of the changes that have taken place particularly in Lib Dem and UKIP support since 2010. Even so, I doubt that a model based on some combination of UNS and proportional swing is going to be that far wrong. Scotland should of course be treated separately but an equivalent model based on the swings there should probably work about as well.
But neither of those had any real power. As The Tap will remind us, the Freemasons are really in charge and I once shared a cigar break with Grand Master of the Grand Lodge of Mark Master Masons, Prince Michael of Kent. He's the one who'll have you buried at the low tide point if you look at him the wrong way. Or maybe not
". Is this some p***ing contest?"
No, it's a gentle send up of an earlier post.
SouthamObserver said:
I am enjoying how the members of the Jewish Board of Deputies have become a part of the metropolitan liberal elite for daring to criticise UKIP's relationship with a Polish Nazi sympathiser. How dare they speak out in that way. It's PC gone mad. The only possible explanation is that they are hypocritical lefties.
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Don't talk daft, Southam. I will say this though, the Jewish Board of Deputies are a group made up, of that old fashion phrase, 'English Worthies'. Self appointed throughout it's history, always nudging up to the levers of power and never ever elected by the wider Jewish population; seeking only their own advancement. Nobody in the shrinking Anglo-Jewish world pays much attention to them, at all.
It's not quite this though ...
http://www1.politicalbetting.com/index.php/archives/2013/11/06/peter-the-punter-on-who-the-republicans-might-choose-to-stop-this-from-happening-hillary-back-in-the-oval-office/
What is likely to be in error is the polling. We are going to have a vast number of opinion polls, and so there is ample opportunity for people to cling to their favourite. I well remember in 2010, when the exit poll contradicted everyone's poll-driven expectations for a major Lib Dem advance, that it took a fair few results before people were willing to accept it was accurate.
I don't know if the exit poll will be as accurate in 2015 - their task is made a lot more difficult - but I am sure that the results will end up surprising many. There will certainly be money to be made by anyone able to keep a clear and unbiased mind.
I see Farage has yet again used the 'just a joke' excuse when saying that its OK him going into coalition with a far right extremist. Its deputy leader talks about 'realpolitik', hilarious when you see how they spout about breaking the mould. Real money trumps real policies.
I met Michael Portillo over here whilst he was filming his Spanish railways series.
Well, not me, it was my mother.
And she didn't actually speak to him. She saw him in Nash's restaurant in Leeds (which is rather good, from memory).
Shook the gloved hand of her Maj once,and met Duke of E,and Duke of Westminster a few times.
Anyway enough bragging,and FPT,the Marf cartoon was excellent,best ever,humour like this often hits the spot.
Douglas Carswell MP ✔ @DouglasCarswell
I am so angry with the deceit of the Coalition frontbench over recall I am doing extra time leafleting in #rochester #DontGetAngryGetChange
http://853blog.files.wordpress.com/2011/02/torymap7kx.jpg
The very fact that UKIP is doing so well is testament to the fact that the election is *not* merely 650 constituency contests: UKIP's rise preceded their increase in activity: the latter was a consequence of the former. Those voters were responding to national events, as the majority of swing voters do. They may then place those events in a local contest but it was the national one that was the initial driver.
And I helped carry Jimmy White out of the Havana Club in Jersey a few years ago
I have all of the original books in hardback, as it happens - many with the dust covers.
Collected them when I was young
I see your obsession with UKIP hasn't changed but there again its far easier to sneer at others than it is to face ones own shortcomings now isn't it? Rather sad really. Talking of which how's Michael Kaminski getting on these days?
Glasshouses stones and all that...........
I once shared a piss-stone with Richard Harris in a pub in Liverpool.
I do like a good hardback. I appreciate a book you can fell a burglar with. A rapscallion clubbed about the head with the Complete Works of Shakespeare shan't forget it.
I also used to call Bingo and introduce "turns"
The most famous were Billy Pierce and Bobby Knutt!!
Various politicians met mainly at May Day events at the WMC.
Joe Ashton, Richard Caborn, Tony Benn and Harry Barnes.
Meanwhile, on the Latvian homophobe front, Open Europe (mildly Eurosceptic think-tank) thinks there is another shoe to drop - a staged defection from UKIP or the Sweden Democrats to bring the National Front group up to the required multinational level:
http://openeurope.blogactiv.eu/2014/10/20/irony-alert-as-poles-ride-to-ukips-rescue-in-a-classic-brussels-stitch-up/?utm_source=EurActiv+Newsletter&utm_campaign=44c3df70a2-Bmail&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_bab5f0ea4e-44c3df70a2-245514803
That's who you meant right?
I was not lucky as although the householder let me use his toilet I had picked the only house in Yorkshire still to use Izal.
This was the day after I had proposed to Mrs BJ she still agreed to marry me but ever since things have never been the same.
It can happen to the best you know
If you want to escalate this to the *real* rainmakers then I once had a short bad-tempered conversation with Jeremy Paxman in the lobby of the Bournemouth International Centre.
My favourite is his prediction that - after the battle with the Nazis was won - the next war would be between the British Empire and the USA.