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politicalbetting.com » Blog Archive » Even though Baxter has SNP taking 47 of the 59 Scottish seats his latest projection has LAB just 5 short of a majority
I can’t quite work out how Martin Baxter is handling his monthly predictions given the sharp rise of the SNP. From his latest data, out last night, he appears to have made his usual national computation and then over-ridden the Scottish seat data with his Scotland specific seat calculation.
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The Leaders' New Year Message YouTube hit - 'one take Murphy' out-takes:
www.youtube.com/watch?v=5DddMEVUySE
Remind us Mike, just how close was Baxter's final forecast to the actual result in 2010?
There's no sign as yet unfortunately of Nate Silver producing a VIPER-type GE forecast, although there's still time of course.
Who knows, we might even be provided with just such a foreceast by the great Smithson Junior himself?
Just over 125 days until the UK general election.
We cannot afford to play at politics any more.
And yet, we have 'played at politics' and miraculously are still here......
Anyway Happy New Year to you and everyone else !
The Tories are being badly hit. In the East, SE, SW they are losing 29 seats to Labour, Midlands & Wales 16, London only 1 [ because of the Greens ]and 21 in the North & Yorks.
The losses to the SNP [ 32 ] creates a swing of only 16 in the Con - Lab calculations. So, even winning only 9 seats in Scotland, Labour is set to win 304.
I will make some adjustments for UKIP and LD. Pure regional UNS gives the LD's only 17 seats. But a higher figure for both UKIP and LD actually increases the Labour - Con difference.
Of course, as you say, the Tory poll figures themselves maybe wrong. But in 2010, if I remember correctly, the pollsters were overestimating the Tory figure.
BTW, the bookies are showing Labour winning 297.
The fact remains: the Labour share of the vote has been over-estimated by 9 out of every 10 polls this parliament sometimes, incidentally, by substantial margins. The last time this happened was in the run up to 1992 ...
1. Clutch
2. Straw
9 out every 10 polls this parliament have overstated the Labour share of the vote.
DecrepitJohn no offence but I've no idea what you're talking about to be honest. IDS was removed because he was unelectable. Like EdM.
In Eastleigh none of the polls even got that they would end up third and the final Survation had them in the lead 8% ahead of what they actually got.
Tell that to the people on US 1549 who crash landed on the Hudson.
I was, many years ago on a Eastern European plane. Around take-off from London the stewardess, while giving her little speech said “Part of this flight is over water. However, due to the excellent constrauction of thgis aircraft, you will not need life-jackets!"
FluffyThought's has decided - well a couple of months ago I did - that it is not fair to offer others bets that they cannot win. So, with a very important UK election approaching (well, outwith Scotland), I am willing to offer three (plus one more) bets. These bets will be guaranteed loss, simple but will fund a worthy cause. Let's start with the latter:
All of my bets are not for personal enrichment (well, apart from when dealing with a plastic-swede). Therefore my nominated charity - subject to adjustments described below - will be:
FATJUGS (1)
The bet is as follows: So to the bets on offer:
Obviously I need to arrange a 'neutral' adjudication team (as Bet 3 excludes the grown-ups). I have already intimated with AntiFrank that he is a party that I would like to perform such a role but I would also request to have a second, counter-balance to his shrewd mind. I would also invite young Charles to be an adjudicator. NOTE: Both have now accepted.(5)
Bets are open on January 1st 2015. Bets to be agreed as soon as possible. (4)
Puntahs, place you bets...! (6)
1 FATJUGS: Future Accruals Towards Junior's Usually Good Servers. Junior is exempt from this contribution and must offer any payments to The Royal British Legion (excluding the weird Scots' branch) or the Royal National LifeBoat Institution. All bets using the FATJUGS meme must be funding for policitalbetting.com unless agreed with me before hand.
2 BenM considers this the Conservatives party ceiling. But he believes in double-dip and triple-dip recessions: Bless!
3 Sorry if anyone feels excluded. My bets are not copyrighted. Feel free to build a friendly, fund-raiser solution amongst yourself.
4 Adjudication will include: Acceptance and recording of each bet according to the response; allocation or re-allocation of bets if they become available (7); and ensuring settlement based upon the integer/unitary GB-wide figures published by Al-Beeb. These figures should be settled no later than seven-days after the poll closes with payments made subsequently.
5 Parties involved in these bets will have somewhat earlier awareness. Same rules apply. [As intimated to AntiFrank this message will be IM'ed - where possible - on 31st December 2014.]
6 All parties to IM FluffyThoughts, AntiFrank and Charles regarding their response. Use it or lose it but do not exercise your bet until 2015...!
7 If any bet (other than bet 4) is not accepted then other listed puntahs can accept to take the bet. No listed puntah can accept more than one bet. If the bet - other than number 4 - remains untaken after 2nd January 2015 then the bet can be opened to the wider demos of politicalbetting.com.
If I Baxter C28, L28, UKIP24 & LD10 it gives UKIP 4 seats
Those 4 UKIP seats are Aberdeenshire West and Kincardine, Argyll & Bute, Cambridge & Gordon.
This makes it rather difficult for me to take Baxter seriously.
http://m.youtube.com/watch?v=Q3Sq-s7V_qg
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=urDzywYAO0I
36% (Survation)
42% (Lord Ashcroft)
(I think there was a third poll but can't find it right now.)
The Conservatives won it with 45%.
However, I think you're pushing it to say Carswell is 'nailed on.' I think he will win, but when the General Election bandwagon swings into gear it may become more uncomfortable for him. I think I'm right in saying no equivalent question to that which was asked at Rochester was asked at Clacton viz. 'and how would you vote at the 2015 GE' when, as we know, it showed Reckless will lose.
http://ukpollingreport.co.uk
Lord Ashcroft Cons 14%
Actual share 14.5%
So another one where this wasn't true.
I really must stop
Final polls on Conservative share:
YouGov 22%
Opinium 21%
Survation 23%
TNS 21%
ComRes 20%
ICM 26% (fieldwork 7-10 days before)
Actual Conservative share: 24%
In fact of the 43 European election opinion polls in 2014 only 11% overstated the actual Conservative share result, and all of these were before the final week. http://ukpollingreport.co.uk/european-elections
Quod erat demonstrandum
http://www.theguardian.com/politics/2015/jan/01/ukip-snp-greens-labour-conservatives-2015-general-election
"Actual Conservative share 24%"
Actual Conservative share 23%
2010 result: Con 307, Lab 258, LD 57
http://www.electoralcalculus.co.uk/trackrecord.html
Anyone know which seats these are?
Ended up watching Kind Hearts and Coronets (latter half, anyway) last night/this morning. Rather a nice comedy.
"In fact of the 43 European election opinion polls in 2014 only 11% overstated the actual Conservative share result, and all of these were before the final week. "
Actually 22 out of 49 got the percentage right or OVERSTATED it........
(New Year's Day-What have I turned into??!!)
http://www1.skysports.com/f1/news/22058/9520366/f1-in-2015-the-driver-line-ups-car-launches-and-test-race-schedules-for-next-season-your-one-stop-run-down-of-the-essential-details-for-the-new-year
Basically -
January - sod all
February - all 3 tests [1 day in March]
March - racing starts halfway through
I expect Korea to be dropped and the order may be altered after that.
Thanks for that Dave - little did I realise that this info was staring me in the face!
A very good forecast by Baxter, expecially so as regards Tory seats.
As you can doubtless tell, I am easily amused...but the whole of it's very good, with surely career-best performances from both Price and especially Guinness, and a very clever punch line at the end set up by, of all people, Arthur Lowe in his first comedy role.
Off on a trip today to Bosworth Field, so just dropped in to say Happy New Year to all.
I didn't realise that chap at the end was Arthur Lowe.
http://www.conservativehome.com/leftwatch/2014/09/how-much-of-a-threat-do-the-green-party-offer-to-labour-and-the-lib-dems.html
Those that watched Kind Hearts And Coronets made a better start than most.
Dan Hodges New Year Message
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/politics/labour/11318945/Prime-Minister-Ed-McMiliband-Its-pure-fantasy.html
Mr. Carnyx, surprisingly, I knew that [I checked Wikipedia for the film an hour or so ago]. Odd how perhaps the least convincing of deaths was based on a real event.
On the subject of air safety, it would be nice if more of the announcements could be like this one
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lqh8e2KYIrU
That Dan Hodges article is very good indeed (and the Photoshop is fun too!). Punters betting on the GE would do well to heed it, especially these wise words:
[Nicola Sturgeon] will not do anything to jeopardise her party’s chances of maintaining power after the Scottish parliamentary elections which follow in 2016. To win those elections she needs to maintain clear yellow and black water between herself and Labour, and she has no intention of becoming Scotland’s Nick Clegg.
I think that Dan is slightly wrong in that the SNP might informally prop up a Labour minority government for a while, extracting such pork-barrel as they can and causing as much pain and disruption in Westminster as they can. However, he is absolutely right that the SNP's focus is on Scottish politics, not UK politics. And, in Scotland, the SNP's enemy is Labour.
Go figure.
You are like a spoilt child who has had his favourite toy taken away.
Suck it up. You lost.
Happy
And may the odds be ever in your favour.New
Year
http://survation.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/12/December-Scotland-Daily-Record-Scottish-Voting-Intention-ONE.pdf
however , what are you wittering on about I lost. It was a political vote which did not result in an outcome that I wanted, but had nothing to do with my comment on the odious racist Fluffer, and is long gone. His hatred of Scottish people oozes out of every post, he is a cretin and deserves to be pointed out.
First, belated New Year greetings to all and especially to Mike and Robert who perform miracles (I imagine) at times to keep the show on the road. I can only hope that successfully playing the markets does enough to a) keep the site going and b) keep OGH in a style to which he has become accustomed.
The Hodges piece is the usual package of anti-Miliband vitriol (which will make it popular with the majority on here) and a crude attempt to undermine the potential Lab-SNP "deal" (if there is one on offer). If the sticking point is going to be Trident, it would be just as much a problem for any Con-SNP deal so presumably that's out of the window as well.
I would not be so dismissive as Hodges for the possibility for a Lab-LD deal though my personal view has long been that the LDs won't want to go back into Coalition unless they have done so well as to make Coalition 2 (with the Tories) look viable.
The inability of some journalists to "see" Ed Miliband as Prime Minister is staggering. There's absolutely no evidence the man wouldn't make a competent Prime Minister - Cameron did some pretty daft things as LOTO (it goes with the territory) but that didn't stop him. If the only criteria for judging a Prime Minister is the way someone looks or eats a bacon sandwich, we are well past the need for electoral reform. The Labour administration on offer might not be to the taste of many on here but I've few concerns on that score and they would, as a group, be more experienced in Government than either the incoming 1997 or 2010 administrations.
However if Trident is the big thing for Sturgeon, I can't see the Tories offering that. As for more powers, it may be tempting, but would the Tories do that without demanding the ditching of Barnett? Cameron has said that he would make sure to get any deal past his party in some official capacity this time. Are the Tories really hungry enough for power? A Lab/SNP deal might look unlikely, until you look at the alternative. More Tory wishful thinking methinks.
That's why you post all the bile..
I might even go so far as to say that this might be leading to the Labour vote/seats being understated in many predictions, as understandably many focus on Labour's difficulties, and particularly Ed M's, to the exclusion of how utterly broken and weak the Tory brand currently is even now, and even leading to a shy Labour effect.
As far as I can see, given Tory weakness - even if huge numbers of UKIPers return 'home', it probably wouldn't be enough to do more than level peg with Labour - only an SNP surge can prevent an outright Labour win - I think Baxter's prediction probably overstates how many seats Labour would win overall if they lost that many to the SNP - and even then, some form of arrangement would get Labour in power. Sure, a formal coalition is unlikely, and it would probably be very limited, but the SNP will not permit a Tory government if they can prevent it - and for some reason stopping Tory austerity is essential, even though Labour austerity will bite just as hard to those it impacts - so something will come up to sort that out.
The mistake many observers are making is to assume that the result of the next GE will be a stable government. This is a big error. Just because we were lucky in 2010 to get a stable government despite the hung parliament doesn't mean we'll be so lucky again. Rather the reverse, it seems to me - almost no combination actually seems to work, except perhaps another Con/LD coalition, and even that would be problematic.
As for the Tories, there is no chance of a formal Con/SNP deal, but I suppose the SNP might abstain or somehow manage to keep a Con minority government limping along for a bit before choosing their opportunity to bring it down.
'The idea of a “Nat Pact” has become the talk of Westminster. The odds on Sturgeon entering the cabinet have been slashed to 6-1.'
That rather suggests he doesn't know his McArse from his McElbow.
In principle I can see either major party finding a way through on those if they had to, with a timetable to discourage the SNP from instantly turning on them (moving Trident can't be done overnight anyway). But I think the SNP will draw conclusions from what happened to the LibDem vote the instant they did a deal with the Tories. In Scotland, the effect would be even more seismic. I can't see a coalition with Labour, but support for a minority Labour government if needed looks more likely than not.
All the same, the odds on NOM now look too short to me. With LibDem representation pulverised and the likely UKIP breakthrough in single figures the scope for either main party to get an overall majority is better than the percentage vote shares would suggest. I'd think that laying NOM is a good strategy at this point - you can trade it off when a couple of polls show one side or the other spiking.
To the second point, it may be true the incoming Labour lot will be more experienced than the ones in 1997 or 2010, though I am uncertain whether that would be a good or bad thing. My main issue with Labour and Ed M getting back in so soon is that it will have been too quick and easy, so they won't have learned any real lessons from what they did in government - they are still at the 'we'll say we got some things wrong, but our actions and policies clearly indicate we don't believe that' phase, or to shake off the bad behaviours you develop after being in power for too long.
I've not really noticed a problem with inexperienced ministers would be the takeaway. Focus on that too much and you get the hilarious argument Brown and Labour were putting forth in 2010 (and which the Tories would use in 2020 if they manage to somehow retain power in a few months), that you don't want to change to inexperienced oppositions when things are going badly - the logic of which is you never change government, as no need to change when things going well, but don't risk changing it when things are not.
As you say, Blair won because he managed to convince millions of Conservative voters who had supported the Tories since 1979 that the Labour Party he led was a non-socialist party of the centre or centre-left. The likes of Benn and Livingstone were masked and ignored and by reassuring the aforementioned voters that the basic tenets of Thatcherism (especially the anti-Union laws) would be maintained, he was able to garner votes by the bucket load.
It's hard to deny that Blair was just a continuation of the post-Thatcher centralising social democracy that had been begun by Major and had presided over an economic boom. Indeed, go further and it's perfectly possible to assert that Blair was the SDP Triumphant - the son, not of Thatcher but of David Owen.
Miliband is cut from a slightly different cloth - more Wilsonian technocrat to my eye. That's hardly charismatic but Wilson did well and in a sense 2015's Wilson faces in Cameron 2015's Heath, a man with problems of his own within the Party and especially relating to Europe.
This is why I see May as February 1974 redux - two uninspiring leaders in the main parties but with Farage and UKIP playing the role of Thorpe's Liberals. Analogies aren't exact - we aren't looking at power cuts or "who governs Britain ?" and the residual levels of support for the LDs, SNP and even the Greens make them more than bit part players.
The duopoly will survive a fall in combined vote share to 60% because the third party vote is so fragmented. I suspect the Conservatives will finish on 31-33% and Labour on 28-30% with UKIP still garnering 12-15% but I've nothing more than a gut feeling and trusting your gut on New Year's Day is often a route to the poor house as I found in the old days when there was jump racing at Windsor.
As it's time for retrospectives, I thought I'd assess my February economic forecasts.
Where I was right
The UK, Ireland and Spain. I forecast growth in all these countries would be significantly better than most economists predicted. I was also bullish on US GDP, although I wasn't significantly higher than the market. I also forecast Italy would remain zero growth, and that Germany would disappoint. And I was also extremely negative on the oil price.
Where I was wrong
I thought France would slip back into recession in 2014. Amazingly, it continued growing (albeit at veeeeery slow pace).
Where I was very wrong
China. My forecast was that growth would slow very sharply this year. And while growth has slowed, my 4% GDP growth figure for the year is likely to have been exceeded by 2.8% or so,
Some forecasts for 2015:
I continue to expect the UK (2.9%), Ireland (3.3%) and Spain to lead the pack in Europe. Spain is the biggest benificiary of cheaper oil prices on the continent (at $70 oil, GDP is 1.5% higher than at $115, so growth might top 3% there in 2015). I expect Portugal to pick up the pace, and see maybe 1.5% growth in 2015.
Germany's exports - a large number of which go to Eastern Europe, Russia and China - are likely to disappoint in 2015. Fortunately, that will be largely offset by lower energy import bills. I'd expect the country's savings rate to dip somewhat, as German house prices are beginning to take off. Overall, say 1.2% growth in 2015, but with stronger consumer spending and weaker industrial production.
France is likely to continue to stagnate. I'd be wary of predicting outright recession (largely thanks to lower energy import bills), but unemployment will probably continue to tick up. Growth of 0.5%.
Italy has now passed a wide reaching labour reform law (technically, it's passed a law allowing Renzi to make a decry on labour reform). We all know what happens when you do this: in the short term, unemployment rises, but in the longer term, your economy benefits. I'd reckon on a difficult 2015, with unemployment heading up towards 15%, but with GDP growth marginally positive - say 0.3% for the year.
Oil will bounce around in the $50-75 range, probably ending the year nearer the top of the range than the bottom.
The US is a tough one to call: corporate America has releveraged like crazy and that makes it quite vulnerable to any slowdown. Furthermore, energy self sufficiency (which they are not at yet) means that the country benefits less from low oil prices. I'd say, continued consumer strength, and a modest pull back in growth in 2015 - probably coming in just behind the UK at 2.6-2.8% for the year.
http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger/4640/388/320/head_up_arse2.jpg
Incidentally, the Standard's position will be interesting. They supported Boris and have been Tory-leaning for years, but they're probably mindful of being in a Labour-meaning city, especially as their main readership is in the city core, and their editorials are intermittently polite about Labour. I'd guess they may end up neutral.
Any views about Austria? Looking at the last few months of t'Economist back-pages she is so far out-of-sync with the Eurozone.
Numbers indicate one thing: They would suggest to me that she is either a) lucky, or b) in for a bout of pneumonia. How do you see the next eighteen-months panning out...?
1. We've delevered since 2008, while US debts are back at record levels
2. We're bigger energy importers, so we get more of a crude benefit
3. The UK economy is probably further from 'potential' than the US
Against that:
1. We still have fiscal tightening ahead of us
2. Political risk
So, no. I'm not confident enough to stake money on this one :-)
Happy New Year one and all, whatever your political persuasion.
I'd add a further important point affecting the UK, which is the much higher dependency on the Eurozone. I suppose that if the ECB finally gets its act together that could in principle turn into a positive for the UK, but I'm not holding my breath - it's more likely to be a negative. In any case any improvement in the Eurozone will probably be too late to help the UK in 2015.
and the manipulated Baxter is fu88ed.
My prediction: 40+ seats for UKIP, which has quietly strengthened over the holiday period. As for the rest; san fairy ann. Che sera, sera.
My suspicion is that they can't and the Tories can and this concept will form part of their post election stragegy if needs be.
Maybe the Tories will supply confidence to a Miliband minority government until it starts to obviously run into the sand and then pull the plug?
That being said, the Eurozone economy is potentially very vulnerable to either further issues with Russia and the Ukraine or a meltdown in Greece. I've shared my views on what will happen in Greece, and I believe that many of the details are already agreed behind the scenes (although my guess for the shape of the "extend and pretend" is just that, a guess). Of course, SYRIZA could play hardball and be told to "fuck off" by the troika, but I think they will hail the negotiation (which is already largely agreed) as a great victory. We shall see.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Canadian_federal_election,_1993
However Baxters amending of the model to account for the rise in the SNP does show that it has eliminated at a stroke the inbuilt advantage that Lab had.
This can be very easily seen as Baxters Make your own prediction model has not yet been altered to allow for SNP rise. If you put identical figures in make your prediction to the figures OGH has at the top then you get Lab Majority 34.
Surely the revised Baxter model showing labour cut to 5 short from 34 majority on identical poll percentages, this wiping out the advantage the electoral system gives Labour, is the real story here?