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politicalbetting.com » Blog Archive » Just under a month before GE2010 leading pollsters were asked to make their predictions: All but one said a CON majority
Whenever I get asked to make political predictions I now say that that is not what gamblers do. What we do is to make an assessment of what’s on offer and decide whether it is worth a punt or not. So if you think that there’s a 50-50 chance of something happening and the odds are 6/4 then you have a value bet – in your eyes at least.
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The Tories will do better than forecast...
That above video of Churchill's funeral was 1965, Thaxted might not be everyones cup of tea (personally it works for me as an expat), but look at the people, the mannerisms, the dress, the scenery etc. Feels like a different world.
The cynic in me thing he has done a deal with Jeb Bush.
Huckabee runs in the primary to suck all the oxygen from the Christian crazies. He then joins them ticket to provide moderate Twa Party appeal plus social conservatism, to balance Bush's more liberal appeal plus the Hispanic pull.
You then have Florida, plus George W to deliver Texas, plus Huckabee in the Bible Belt, Weakness remains how you nail Ohio and Pennsylvania, but not sure that he GOP has anyone who can deliver those with certainty anyway
Latest ARSE 2015 General Election and "JackW Dozen" projection countdown :
Tuesday 13th January 9:00am
We need to shake out Christmas, New Year, travelling and get through the 5 week no-pay month and then, mid February, things will get serious.
I'm looking for fieldwork during the first week of February for signs for the General Election. Not now.
Interesting interview.
Daily Mail - EXCLUSIVE: David Cameron on fixing the U-bend, making Boris wait, asking Sam before saving hostages...and why this is the biggest Election for a generation
Nelson Jones @Heresy_Corner 8 mins8 minutes ago
The row about the campaign poster usually comes around the second week of the four-week election campaign. We're in for months of misery.
It does look like NoM to me, with probably a Labour minority government, and I would expect a second election within a year. The honeymoon effect combined with Tory infighting leading to a Labour majority.
It will make for a wobbly year economically too...
I learn something new every day.
I'm more inclined to listen to Mr. Crosby than the pollsters, on the basis of last time's predictions.
About 4 weeks until F1 testing starts. Ho hum.
It's messy but people have party ties regardless of the prevailing ideology
Also it is increasingly looking as if UKIP are turning into Old Labour: anti EU, isolationist, socially conservative and opposed to change in welfare state and NHS.
Why you keep coming to a politics blog to announce, and demonstrate, your lack of interest in politics is an enduring mystery.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2895716/Outrage-lawyer-supported-Ched-Evans-wins-role-world-sport-s-supreme-court.html There I was thinking it was the job of a lawyer to defend his client and represent his point of view, are we seriously trying to imply that people that represent people who protest their innocence should be prevented from getting plum jobs as well ?
"In our increasingly mad and dogma-driven country, most political slogans mean the opposite of what they seem to say. The best example of this is the phrase ‘family-friendly’. This describes measures to ensure that most parents hardly ever see their children, who are instead brought up by paid strangers.
One ‘family-friendly’ policy is taxpayer subsidies for the network of day orphanages where abandoned children are detained without trial for long hours, while their mothers are chained to desks miles away...
This stupid expression is at the heart of a long and furious propaganda campaign against real family life, waged by weirdo revolutionaries since the 1960s. Originally doomed to failure, it suddenly succeeded when big business realised that female staff were cheaper and more reliable than men....
A significant number of homes – four per cent – lose money by having both parents at work. Many – ten per cent – gain nothing from this arrangement. Yet they still do it. Many more gain so little that it is barely worth the bother.
The most amazing statistic of the past year (produced by insurance company Aviva) shows that thousands of mothers who go out to work are, in effect, working for nothing. The cost of day orphanages, travel and other work expenses cancels out everything they earn.....
How strange. When people ignore their own material best interests, it is a clear sign that they have been deluded by propaganda or fashion, or both.
How much better it would be for everyone involved if these mothers stayed with their children."
http://hitchensblog.mailonsunday.co.uk/2015/01/heres-absolute-proof-mothers-are-better-off-staying-at-home.html#comments
No doubt the usual characters will be along to go on about taking britain back to the 1950s. Well, with technology no, but values yes. Britain cannot afford to leave things as they are and must return to the social values of the 1950s with the 1960s social revolution sent to the scrapyard as soon as possible.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-30670633
Mildly amused. The 1930s spending comment refers to a percentage of GDP. Which is what the Conservatives used and were attacked for on their poster. Be interesting to see if what's sauce for the goose is sauce for the gander.
Fail.
On topic, Mike's point about distrusting "mood" is very important. Most people have made decisions as individuals and some have yet to do so; there isn't any evidence that many will be influenced by whatever perception of the mood filters through to them. It's a lot better to go by polls, and despite all the reservations that we need to make, it would be unusual if the final few months produced a seismic shift.
As Peter Hitchens has previously pointed out, most women with young children have low paid minimum wage or little better, repetitive jobs with little autonomy and all sorts of anti social hours and no family friendly policy in practice even if it exists on paper, possibly even zero hours. Frankly very unpleasant and probably no pension with little chance of progression. It is these people who are being hounded by propaganda into delegating the upbringing of their pre school children to the state. It is also, principally, these people that UKIP are appealing to.
plus Huckabee isn't a tea partier. He is an economic moderate religious conservative.
I think that Mikes point was slightly different. 3 1/2 weeks ahead the polls pointed to a Tory majority. Something changed significantly in those last weeks, or the polls were all equally out.
To me it sounds as if it is everything to play for. I would be quite happy with a Labour minority government, but anything could happen. It is going to be an interesting year.
If you look at the opening prices compared to now the Tories are up 5 and everyone else cancels each other out
The mid point is 633 allowing only 17 for NI, Plaid, green, respect and the speaker
So selling all if them at 623 is almost a bet.. Selling a combination of the big parties must be value
If you sell con lab and LD at 588 you are buying the others at 62
Assuming green respect and speaker as well as NI Parties and Plaid hold their seats, you'd be buying SNP and Ukip at 36 I think, which is better than current buy of (40?)
Lot of assumptions there though esp NI and Wales
04/01/2015 09:49
Cameron insists on #Marr that his EU migrant benefits reforms will achieve an overall cap on arrivals. Total garbage and he knows it.
In south London where I used to live of course it is dreadful, and probably the same in most cities (not helped by Immigration) and as the NHS goes down hill in cities the working conditions of staff go downhill and the best of them move to hospitals in places like Bedfordshire instead.
Oddly we have a situation where roughly in Tory voting areas the NHS is quite good but in Labour voting areas it is Crap.
I don't think its just immigration though, its partly that people who live in Tory voting areas (and therefore work in NHS hospitals in such) have more initiative and flexibility and this means that the hospitals (and other public services) function better than in Labour areas where many of the staff are union minded jobsworths.
Watched Inherent Vice last night - it is gloriously unfathomable film noir, with Joaquin Phoenix very good as the perpetually drug-addled, perpetually bemused hippy investigator in 1970 California. Set to be a cult classic is my prediction.
A big problem seems to be the primary care system in inner cities, which of course is the gateway to the rest of the NHS. In which case the Government needs to do something, like abandon the GP system and set up a system of emergency rooms staffed by employed doctors.
I like the new labour poster of Cameron and the NHS. I imagine a lot of people seeing it will want to smack him around the face. Much better result than the Tory's 'Road to Germany'.
On the NHS, I live in Holloway, North London, which is as Labour (and multiethnic) as you can get - the Tories barely put up candidates. The NHS round here seems fine, like your Bedfordshire experience - facilities are maybe a bit scruffy-looking but swift and effective. And to be honest I'm not getting many complaints in Broxtowe either. I think you're perhaps mistaken in generalising from your sample of two - the truth is probably that the situation around the country is very patchy, for slightly random reasons - GPs coming and going, good and bad management, and so on - and the tightness of funding means that any local hiccups have an immediate bad effect.
Does he not include the USA , to arrive at that claim ?
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-30654641
Possible deflation and we could see printing money. Not sure the Germans are too fond of that idea.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/health/nhs/11319627/AandE-in-crisis-a-special-report.html
a) Being thrown out of a plane in a tandem parachute jump with Ed Miliband. Who has no parachute.
b) staying for a lock-in with Nigel Farage and the flirty bar-maid - when you know the wife is expecting you home. And she has been shopping at Victoria's Secret in one last effort to rekindle your marriage. And boy, is that divorce gonna cost you dear....
c) having a picnic of sand-covered meat paste sandwiches on a Cornish beach with David Cameron.
d) giving Nick Clegg a pity-fuck. With the lights on. Streamed to the world.
Suddenly a mouthful of sand doesn't feel so bad....
This is quite interesting. Possibly the drop in oil prices is filtering through.
"O/T I watched.. The Theory of Everything ..last night .. brilliant"
It was good though I wouldn't wax quite as lyrical as you did about Bill Murray's sentimental 'St Vincent' which was your last week's offering.
It does have some of the best lines in what has been a fairly poor year for script-writing. Probably the film of the year for me was Under The Skin. A seriously disturbing film that will stay with me for a very long time.
"Do you think the Labour Party used a library picture, or did they ask Dave to sit for a bespoke portrait?"
You inadvertantly make a good point. The copyright for the photo will either belong to Cameron if he's bought it or the photographer who took it*. Perhaps they should sue....
*Or the retoucher
I am extremely interested in the General Election, and pretty interested in politics generally. And from a betting point of view, I'm more than merely interested. My point was that 99.9% of people were not considering the General Election over the Christmas-New Year period, and polls as indicators are likely to be very misleading until we get through January which is likely to be a tight month for most, and a miserable enough one for many.
Indigo's comment that I'm only interested if the polls are favourable for us blues is mendacious. I will be moving to the edge of my seat come February. And I'm prepared to revise my predictions about the GE result based on next month. My point is very simple but, I feel, true: this isn't the time to be testing the temperature for the election. That's all.
However, I will add this. In general I have found this to be a very boring parliament. Compared to some of the fun and games I can remember in the 1970's, 1980's and 1990's politics is a 1/100ths as interesting, in my opinion. That's partly the result of having a fixed-term, which has denuded us of so much fun and speculation, but also it has been a business-like performance by the coalition with a remarkable lack of major scandal or massive balls-ups. I mean, if a Cornish pasty is about as big as it gets you know we're scratching around. Yes, I know this will upset the kippers who see themselves as having shaken the foundations, but that remains to be seen. We have seen many similar mid-term minor party successes in the past. The proof of the pudding will be on May 7th.
And, yes, this has all extended to some of the discussions on here which seem to have gone round and round in circles with the same people posting the same thing time and time again. (Indigo clearly thinks that's true of me.) Many of the topics have veered wildly away from thread headers into territory that is at best marginal to British politics. Yesterday's discussion on Asian education was, I felt, a tad tedious, with no offence intended. And that's from someone who has spent a lot of time out there.
It remains, however, the best political comment forum in the country and with all due respect I shall continue to be here. I often watch, and occasionally post which I recommend to a few on here as a decent enough recipe.
It'll be interesting to see how that NHS poster goes down west of the Severn, given labour's dreadful record there.
Are there actual cases where doctors have to use an interpreter to communicate with the rest of the healthcare system?
In addition, a compromise has been agreed where The Bundesbank only buys German government debt, the Banque National French government debt, etc. In this way, Merkel can say "if the whole thing goes tits up, we won't be saddled with a bunch of Greek government debt".
http://www.theguardian.com/politics/gallery/2010/mar/30/general-election-2010-labour#img-1
North London always did get better services than South London ;-)
I think your point about management is correct. Good management can make all the difference and, I find it uncomfortably so, it often comes down to the abilities of the person at the top - just as it does with schools.
The key qualities seem to be more personality based. Someone who is consistent and someone who will support their staff in taking initiative (within reason), not hang them out to dry to save their own skin when things go wrong.
I have to say that the NHS just isn't an issue for me in this election, and I find it very difficult to get excited about immigration (far less interested than when I lived in south London and the place was grossly overcrowded even then 14 years ago)
The political issue that interests me most is housing, not for myself, but because I have several children who, to be frank, if things continue as they are I will advise to go abroad rather than be chained to an insane debt. Building over the green belt will change nothing, it is the ownership of the housing stock (increasingly concentrated into wealthy private landlords) rather than the quantity that is the issue, along with the appalling conditions people on 6 monthly renewable leases have to endure.
The other issue that interests me is employment law. I don't want to see a return to print union practices of the '70s but things have now gone much to far the other way. This dosen't
just mean a miserable low paid time for workers but also stifles productivity as people in that situation won't be flexibile and innovative.
Thirdly the EU. I would rather be in a Britain badly run by representatives that the people of Britain elect than a britan well run by people elected by other nations or no one at all.
Finally as a Christian, I think a lot of the 60s and subsequent reforms were a ghastly mistake or worse, particuarly easy divorce and abortion, and the current push to make women with under 5's work will cause catastrophic damage to society. I think its a typical example of middle class people forcing their aspirations onto the working class. Also, the idea of people identifying themselves and having privileges (including legal privileges) due to the minority they are in or identify with scandalises me. As a Catholic I am more than happy for a multi racial society but multiculturalism and its associated greviance mongering is the road to Srebrenica.
I ought to be the sort of person that votes Labour, but alas for them, like many many others, I'm in the UKIP camp, and I think that the Conservatives will be shocked in May as to how many of their voters in recent years were not that enamored with tory party policy but voted for them due to the above paragraph and now will vote UKIP.
Nigel's message; he doesn't like hearing foreign voices on trains, or in hospitals...
If we are to believe Nige this morning, he is delighted with immigrants, as long as they don't work in the NHS...
Or on trains.
http://www.nhsimas.nhs.uk/what-we-can-offer/intensive-support-team/rtt-pathways-guide/
Only applies to NHS England. I do not know the rules elsewhere.
Its only because foreigners as a rule speak better English that we do their language, that brits abroad manage so well.
I'm no fan of Farage, or UKIP, to be honest, but I can't see anything wrong with "healthcare professionals" having to speak perfect English in England. Can you?
They might split the vote and winning nothing, especially at the Oscars.
Here in the Real World there are at least 2 practical issues
1. What is the definition of "perfect English" and how is it objectively measured?
2. Assuming not every current "healthcare professional" meets that standard, there would be an immediate staffing crisis.
Apart from that, it's surefire winner...
And of course the presence of an 18 week target doesn't incentivise health services to treat people any quicker, or is there another target for this?