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politicalbetting.com » Blog Archive » The big and only real question is how the changes in the national mood are playing out in the marginals
There’s no doubt that this has been a dramatic polling week with apparently a move from LAB that is changing the long established view that the red team was heading for victory.
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The basic facts to remember are:
1) More people have health coverage than before
2) A large majority getting healthcare through the exchanges and the Medicaid expansion are very happy with their coverage
3) The bill has reduced the deficit, and keeps on getting better projections with every passing year
It's funny that there was another big healthcare bill in recent years which had a botched roll-out, created a whole new entitlement, and really hurt the federal budget: Medicare Part D. Yet Republicans barely ever complain about that, and "fiscal conservatives" like Paul Ryan and Mitch McConnell all voted for it. The objection to Obamacare isn't the nature of the bill, it's the man that proposed it. Everything else is a smokescreen.
https://m.facebook.com/tedcruzpage/posts/10152839355922464
He is for "big ideas", yet his platform is full of minor policies (like scrapping the bedroom tax), or aims without mechanics behind them (like a jobs guarantee or 100% renewables) that clearly won't happen. The one big policy with an actual mechanism - capping retail price rises - now won't have too much of an effect due to the huge fall in wholesale prices. Thank God.
Well quite. That's because he has a few ideas, but not vision. He doesnt know what he actually wants to do with the country, and doesnt have the faintest idea how he will get there., the next paragraph of that article is even more damning
Places like Halesowen and Nuneaton are "regained" using this model. Walsall N is a possible Labour loss to UKIP.
In most seats people don't give a flying fart about who the MP is. It tends to be traditional rural seats like mine where everyone tends to know/identify the MP where that applies. In large cities and towns most people haven't a clue who their MP is. In Scotland and Wales it is even more complicated because people have different MPs from different parties in different constituencies depending on whether it is Westminster or Holyrood/Cardiff.
Am I correct in thinking that once again the Tories achieved a good defence of council seats last night and picked up one from the LibDems? Real votes etc is what OGH used to say.
If the marginals are so different from the national picture then frankly the Tories need to be 6/7/8% ahead is total crap. The Tories need to be at least 1 vote ahead of the 2nd party in 326 seats. If they prove to be, David Cameron remains PM. If they are 10,000 votes behind in each of the other 324 seats, who cares!
(1995: 25%, 1996: 29%)
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/politics/ed-miliband/11229342/Ed-Miliband-sounds-good-but-lacks-substance-and-show.html
Anyway, the email sets out Labour Policies, under three headings; as
____________________________________________________________________________________________
First, I will undo the damage the Tories have done to our country:
I will scrap the Bedroom Tax, which unfairly punishes the disabled and the vulnerable
I will scrap the Health and Social Care Act, which damages and undermines our NHS
I will scrap the gagging law, which limits our freedom of speech and right to campaign
I will reverse the Tories' £3bn tax cut for millionaires, so we get the deficit down but do it fairly
Second, I will take on the powerful vested interests that hold millions back:
I will force energy companies to freeze gas and electricity bills until 2017
I will give power back to those who rent their homes, by scrapping letting fees and stabilising tenancy agreements
I will raise money from tobacco companies, tax avoiders, and a mansion tax to fund doctors, nurses, careworkers and midwives for our NHS
I will reform our banks so that they properly support small businesses
I will stop recruitment agencies hiring only from abroad
Third, I will start to rebuild a fairer, better Britain:
I will raise the minimum wage, to ensure that everyone that does a hard day's work is properly rewarded
I will promote the living wage by giving tax breaks to companies that pay it
I will ban the damaging zero-hours contracts that exploit British workers
I will bring in a lower 10p income tax rate, cutting taxes for 24 million workers
I will support working parents with 25 hours of free childcare for three- and four-year-olds
I will help more young people get on the housing ladder by getting 200,000 homes built every year
___________________________________________________________________________________________
Now I like some of the first batch, although IMHO the last thing the NHS needs is yet another shake up.. What does “scrapping the H&SC Act" mean? Going back to what we had before? Modify maybe but as I say, more structural disruption is a plan for disaster.
In the second batch, the energy freeze is surely fraught with problems, and as I’ve often said, why a “mansion tax” Why not add a couple of bands to those which already exist for Council Tax. And how do you direct taxes to specific activities.
In the third batch, I thought UNFAIR ZHC’s were already being legislated against, and wasn’t there a major problem with a 10p tax rate before?
I’m all for the homes-building programme, but shouldn’t that be for rent.Or at least include some sensible return to Council housing?
Any comments...?
The big glaring problem with those lists is that the spending items are massively expensive, and the income generators even taken at face value won't make much, and how many government money grabbing wheezes ever make the amount of money they are supposed to ?
Jesus! Where to start?
Maybe with this - every single one of these policies is more spending or more tax. Just what a struggling economy needs! (not). And then individually:
Raising the top-end tax rates - politically probably ok, economically nuts.
Price controls in energy? - Insane. Will kill investment. And, er...., the oil price is collapsing so a freeze would lock in higher prices. Fuckwittery of the first order.
No letting fees? Really? ! So no more lets via agents then. Yeah - destroying the letting market will be GREAT! What a dickhead.
Mansion Tax? Nuff said. (on the plus side will alienate his Islington Guardian Labour luvvie constituency).
Ban zero hour contracts? Really? Some people love these.
200,000 homes means serious reform of Planning. Does he realise that?
This is a big bag of ammuniition for Dave to show Ed has no idea whatever how the real world works.
Because adding bands to council tax means the money will go to local authorities and the two Eds won't be able to spend it centrally.
In other news, I thought Ukip were on the verge of stealing all of the Tories' donors?
In the third quarter of 2014 they were 6th in the donation rankings, only just ahead of the Greens:
* Conservative Party - £6,757,289
* Labour Party - £3,188,931
* Liberal Democrats - £2,752,873
* Scottish National Party (SNP) - £1,572,825
* Co-operative Party - £415,114
* UK Independence Party (UKIP) - £98,387
* Green Party - £88,250
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-30034887
' Thirteen people have been arrested over a trafficking ring which saw a pregnant woman almost tricked into an abortion following a sham marriage.
The 20-year-old from Slovakia was sold for up to £15,000 by a gang in Greater Manchester who organised a marriage to a man facing deportation, police said.
The woman told an interpreter at hospital she had been "sold against her will" and was "appalled" by the prospect of an abortion.
Ten men and three women were arrested.
The group, aged between 24 and 57, were arrested at addresses in Rochdale, Failsworth and Cheetham Hill on Wednesday and are still in custody.
Police said the woman, who was 25 weeks pregnant, was flown to Luton in May, believing she was going to visit her sister.
She was met by a man who claimed to be her sister's friend and was taken to an address in Failsworth, Oldham before being sold to another man.
In July, she was married under Sharia law in Rochdale.
The woman was later taken to hospital for an appointment by a woman who acted as an interpreter and told staff she wanted an abortion.
However, she was spoken to by an independent interpreter and police said it became clear "she was being sold into a marriage against her will".
Det Insp James Faulkner said: "She was completely unaware of this group's nefarious motives and by the time she realised what was going on, it was too late.
"She was met by a male unknown to her and trafficked to an address in London and then further on to the north west where the initial pretence of her coming to visit family was quickly dismissed and she was sold to an unknown male."
He said she was sold to a male and "lived with him for the purpose of securing his immigration status in this country".
Det Insp Faulkner said there was a trend for trafficking pregnant women as they are deemed more attractive for obtaining immigration status.
Police said they believed there were currently 400 cases of sham marriages in Manchester.
"Home Office statistics place a cost of £40,000 on the UK economy for each sham marriage," Mr Faulkner said.
Those arrested were held on suspicion of offences including trafficking people for exploitation and conspiracy to facilitate breach of immigration law. '
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-manchester-30033201
Isn't it wonderful how 'enriched' British society has become.
Simples.
FPT Oxfordsimon previous thread - I agree with your approach (don't add random extra punishments to people after release) and think that JohnLoony's idea that footballers are a role model is ludicrous as well as irrelevant. The question of "punishment for denying guilt" has wider application too. In considering whether to release long-serving prisoners for serious crimes like murder, one test is whether they've owned up and show remorse. There are apparently a number of cases of people who are not being released because, after 15 years or so, they are still protesting their innocence. It doesn't seem to me that we should be holding that against them - if they actually are innocent, then we're expecting them to lie to get out. The test should be more subtle - that they show genuine horror about the crime, whether admit to it or not.
Re the proposition of subsidising "The Living Wage": Is this not what the 'left' are saying happens already, with Working-Familiy-Credits? Or is the simpleton going to issue more red-tape, administration and burden on top of the existing, current, failed fiasco...?
The deficit is £5,000 per household per year. Not even the Tories will be honest about this, let alone the "fairness" Parties (the ones whose names start with letters in the first half of the alphabet).
More fundamentally, IT is changing the world faster than an ageing electorate can cope with it. For example, peer-to-peer ISAs have the potential to rip a smug, otiose banking industry to shreds - and every leftie should praise George Osborne to the skies for that.
The franchise extensions in the 19th century sought to match political to economic power. The creation of universal suffrage (in 1918/28) didn't - those extensions were in part a War Memorial, in part a result of political campaigning. Economic decline, now economic free fall, was the inevitable consequence. And no, it wasn't Labour Governments that granted those extensions, either.
Of course Peebietories will bang on about the lack of Labour's Big Idea. It hides the fact that they haven't got one either. Big Ideas make bad politics, if you think that splitting your Party of choice is bad politics. Think on.
Perhaps what's needed is to reconnect the franchise to economic power. An elected Upper House, with its power over Money Bills restored, elected on a different franchise - one that acknowledges that some people contribute more in tax than others. Say: you get a vote if you pay £10,000 in income tax (not many people do) and you can buy more at, say, £25,000 a go if you want to.
http://www.politicshome.com/uk/article/98005/electoral_commission_political_parties’_latest_donations_and_borrowing_figures_published.html
http://www.electoralcommission.org.uk/i-am-a/journalist/electoral-commission-media-centre/news-releases-donations/political-parties-latest-donations-and-borrowing-figures-published16
2013 is their best year so far, they raised £2.4m for the year.
http://www.electoralcommission.org.uk/find-information-by-subject/political-parties-campaigning-and-donations/political-parties-annual-accounts/details-of-accounts
When will the Labour party begin to get serious and give the nation the leader it needs..not one picked by the Unite Union.
Is it a tax that has been deliberately engineered by government to allow people with the know how, or the means to afford someone else with the know how, to completely avoid paying it?
If so, why does it exist at all? That would clearly be unfair on those without the means or the know how.
If not, and the ways of getting around it are accidental loopholes, will you criticise the Milibands for what you surely must regard as action as morally reprehensible as the legal corporate tax avoidance that you're seemingly keen to publicly condemn?
Or do you have to try to find a third way to explain this, saving you the bother of sticking to your principles without criticising Miliband?
The Scottish National party is planning to target more seats at Westminster by allowing prominent yes campaigners to stand at the general election, the Guardian can reveal.
The party’s annual conference is expected to endorse plans on Friday to allow its newest members to stand for election, after its ranks were swelled by more than 60,000 new activists and supporters after the referendum.
In a potentially far-reaching move, the party could also promote non-SNP candidates as part of a broader “yes alliance” of independence campaigners, allowing them to stand in place of the SNP under that wider banner.
http://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2014/nov/14/snp-alex-salmond-indepence-campaigners-general-election
F1: just seen that the Abu Dhabi race will be on at the usual time (1pm race start) because it's a night race this year.
Mr. Eagles, that sounds very unusual. Could be clever though, trying to forge a 'movement' rather than just bolster the party itself, with the remains of the Yes campaign.
Curious if so. Also, I read his speech as being as damning about New Labour as about the Cons.
"These are the symptoms of a deeply unequal, deeply unfair, deeply unjust country."
etc, in the same vein...
...is surely an indictment of the past 20+ years of government?
True enough as far as it goes. But if you took that idea to its conclusion, you would have to believe that Tony Blair was lucky, twice, in 650 constituency elections. And then Gordon Brown mysteriously got unlucky.
But in fact UK general elections are largely presidential elections.
On the specifics of the piece, the Greens have named Edinburgh East as their one Scottish target. They'll be hugely annoyed if the SNP seek to put a different Yes Alliance candidate in that seat:
http://www.scottishgreens.org.uk/email-newsletter/edinburgh-greens-newsletter-7th-november-2014/6342/
Ed accuses Ukip of being a divisive force - he wouldn't like to live in a UK like that. Setting one section of society against another.
Yet, as far as I can see, nearly all his policies are based on an "us and them" theme. "They're all out to get you."
The fat cats aren't paying their tax, the energy companies are robbing you blind, they're making society more unequal, hard-working families are being taken advantage of by the elite. Vote Labour to sort the bastards out.
His main gripe is that he thinks Ukip have stolen his clothes. But they're stigmatising potential Labour voters and not Tory ones.
"We wouldn't put the Tories into government," Nicola Sturgeon said on the Today programme, while, as part of an interview with Mure Dickie in the FT, Alex Salmond raises the possibility of a confidence and supply deal with the Labour Party after the next election.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/0/formula1/gossip/
Good job the sport's in such sound financial shape.
Labour: £255,144
SNP: £1,572,825
Assuming spending is broken down in proportion to sitting MPs it's still only £0.5m to the SNP's £1.5m.....
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-30039300
@CCHQPress: Major Labour donor backs leadership rival @ChukaUmunna as it’s clear @Ed_Miliband is #JustNotUpToIt
http://t.co/aZKtewBhVF
We have what we want which is more powers (promised) to Scotland so let's work with that, whoever the incumbent at Westminster is.
Were the sarcastic remarks due to the nationality of the wrongdoers?
What a thought.
Look at the places where Labour are strong... The muslim caliphates of East London, and South Yorkshire...
What lovely examples of a United britain
Just as the Jacobites failed to guard their flank and rear in 1746 and turned their backs on many of their early supporters so the SNP should watch out because the Scottish Tories haven't gone away. Quite the opposite.
I wouldn't have thought there were too many english people that need to trick pregnant young women into marriage in order to be allowed to stay in the country would you?
The Conservative lead at the last election was 7.3% (across Great Britain), so they require a further swing of just over 4% in their favour. This means that, very roughly speaking, the period since IndyRef has seen the Conservatives make more than one quarter of the progress they need to make to achieve a majority-winning lead over Labour in GE2015 - bearing in mind that the Lib Dem collapse means that the Tories would probably achieve a majority with the same lead over Labour as in GE2010.
Three more quarters of progress to make. An optimistic scenario [for the Conservatives] would pencil in doing so as a result of the Autumn Statement, the Budget, and the election campaign itself. Nervous times for an anti-Tory...
It could potentially allow across Scotland, Unionists to unite being the leading SNP/yes alliance candidate.
The abject failure to actually do anything constructive or useful is equally matched by their ability to blame everyone or anyone else but themselves for the state in which they always leave the country.
Looking at those funding numbers, it will be interesting to see when Labour starts drawing in its expectations of which Tory seats are in reach. If only because they are now going to have to siphon off a shedload of money to Scotland, to retain what they have. They will have to try and give the pretence of shooting for a majority, but I won't be surprised if Labour soon have to curtail all efforts on seats outside a majority of say 10.
Their private polling in some seats where UKIP are a threat will also be throwing a spanner in the works of their, er, well-oiled machine....
That said, all spending is going to have limited results whilst ever Ed is still at the helm. It is hard to have a relaunch when the rocket has so determinedly refused to fly for the past four years - and no elements of its design appear to have been changed. Labour stick resolutely to the Fireworks Code - do not go back to a firework once it has been lit, in the expectation that it could yet burst into life. But Ed looks ever more like a rocket still forlornly stuck in the bottle on the morning of November 6th....
Isn't it about now the left start shouting about triple dips? Unless the left in Germany won't talk Germany down ( unlike the left in this country talking about UK)
Don't forget they helped usher Lady Thatcher into Downing Street and 18 glorious years of Tory rule
Edit - Just seen the other photo, no not likely a Vampire as it clearly has a tail-wheel.
http://jamienory.wordpress.com/2014/11/13/your-granddad-died-so-you-could-buy-our-rosemary-foccacia-you-ungrateful-fucks-so-get-out-there-and-start-shopping/
Second photo shows either a Spitfire or Seafire.
"Your Granddad died so you could buy our rosemary foccacia you ungrateful fucks, so get out there and start shopping."
We're becoming a nation of victims. It used to just be Liverpudlians but it's spread to the rest of the country. I would date it from aftermath of Diana's car crash and it's just got worse. Todays hand wringing in thenTelegraph and the Guardian is something to behold. In advertising terms I'd say it's close to a masterpece.
The conclusion is to leave the SNP out of calculations for inclusion into the next government betting possibilities.
My frustration with Ed is reaching Dan Hodges levels. If only he'd given yesterday's speech at the conference.
It wasn't great by any means and would still have been bettered by Cameron's, but as I said at the time, better a 2-1 defeat than the 5-0 drubbing Ed got.
Ed's then sat back and watched Labour's poll share slip away like sand in a timer, an utter irrelevance in Rochester.
And the lesson of the past few weeks is that Conference Speeches prior to elections do matter.
Personally, as a RedLib, I'm waiting to see the LD (and the Green) proposals.
The No camp will not unite. The three unionist parties all hate each other. Can you imagine David Cameron encouraging votes for Ed Miliband anywhere?
That reminds me I must pop toTesco and buy some Pipes of Peace
Can anyone remember much of what David Cameron said?
Not forgetting all the other stuff. Gobsmacking.
"It's vomit inducing, and it's not even original."
You miss the point of the ad....infact you miss the point of advertising
More to your taste
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jYDBMjvqMlM
I see he forgot immigration again.
Go back to your constituency (singular) and prepare for...err...
Scottish Ipsos, Cons: 10%
Scottish Yougov, Cons: 15%
Scottish Panelbase, Cons: 15%