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politicalbetting.com » Blog Archive » YouGov’s UKIP share falls to lowest level since October – a
politicalbetting.com » Blog Archive » YouGov’s UKIP share falls to lowest level since October – and this is with the party being prompted
On UKIP's lowish numbers we need to see whether this is supported by other polling – firms particularly the non online ones — Mike Smithson (@MSmithsonPB) January 7, 2015
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@Indigo is absolutely right that Brent and WTI are not exactly the same. However, that is not the main reason for the differential.
Over the past 20 years, sometimes Brent has traded at a premium, sometimes WTI. At one point in - I think - 2012, WTI was at a $20 discount to Brent.
The current differential is because the Gulf Coast refinineries are set up to process Mayan Crude, which is heavy (and IIRC quite sour) oil, and which typically trades at about an $8 discount to Brent (because only refineries setup to handle Mayan buy it).
A US refiner therefore has the choice of buying Mayan crude or American crude - and WTI therefore trades roughly half way between Mayan crude and Brent.
http://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/wordofmouth/2015/jan/05/-sp-brown-sauce-sales-are-falling-has-britain-finally-come-to-its-senses
Steerpike in the Speccie thinks it might be a pisstake, but isnt sure
http://blogs.spectator.co.uk/steerpike/2015/01/guardians-brown-mire/
Sean. Is your story of a chat with one person shyly going to vote UKIP as "statistically significant" as the chat I had with my brother last night , who really doesn't like Dave and hasn't all thro this Parliament but is going to vote Tory because he thinks Ed Miliband would be a disaster for the Country?
He thought he had identified a new group - LibDem --> UKIP switchers. I recall they've been somewhat discussed on here (probably reflecting the NOTA element of LD votes), but it's always nice to have anecedotal description of a member of this group
Something slightly off about sitting in the sun in Socal listening to someone rip Cameron to pieces...
That being said, if you'd asked them five years ago why they were voting LibDem, they would have said "the other parties are all the same, it's time we tried someone new, and these guys really are listening to what people think".
I suspect we are just seeing a ‘post defection’ drop in support, due to lack of recent media exposure – the problem for UKIP and minor parties’ especially, is the tendency to be crowded out of the spot-light, as general election campaigns kick off.
Most voters can hear it in the language used by many senior politicians all the time. Everything is spoken of in terms of party positioning, rather than giving the electorate policies they approve of. There are too many wheezes and cunning plans, and not enough sensible policy. And there are way, way too many lies, and especially stupid obvious lies. Lets not even get started on the sanctimony and the cant.
People also hear populism being spoken of as it its a dirty word, "populism: a member or adherent of a political party seeking to represent the interests of ordinary people." Most voters are not going to see much wrong with seeking to represent the interest of ordinary people, rather than the elite or special interests.
Do you give Brandy to an alcoholic?
http://lybio.net/tag/yes-minister-open-government-transcription/
The relative decline in importance of the traditional west, and the fact that someone in Bangalore or Bratislava can probably do your job for less money (which, of course, has been to the benefit of the owners of capital) are not problems that are easily solved. And we all want the benefits of globalisation - oooh... new iPhone! - while being disgusted that the politicians have not insulated us from its costs.
Politicians have less control over events than people believe. And that's why all insurgent movements - when they win power in one way or another - disappoint. (See the LibDems and Barack Obama.)
I can't remember any earlier GE where there has been such a unanimous clamour that a hung Parliament is virtually certain.
With both Labour and Conservative available at around 5/1 against them achieving an overall majority, I'm watching for any clear trend emerging with a view to betting against the herd.
When French politicians said (and I'm only paraphrasing a little here) "rapacious capitalists hire and fire at will, without thinking of the families they destroy, we must introduce worker protection legislation to stop profitable companies letting go of workers" then it was a clear case of populism. But it caused horrendous long-term unemployment.
When the British government repeatedly stepped in to stop British firms from going bust in the 1970s, that was decidedly populist too. The opinion polls were enormously in favour of the government bailing out these firms, and saving people's jobs. But the longer-term costs were - again - horrendous.
I have no doubt that a populist government would - like populist South American governments over much of the last half century - use trade barriers to protect British industry and jobs - and I can imagine the public cheering such a move. But anyone who thinks that trade barriers bring prosperity is ignorant of all economic history.
Populism is great for winning votes. But most decisions are hard and involve trade-offs. Those who peddle simple solutions for complicated problems are either stupid, deluded or outright liars.
UKIP do represent frustration, disappointment and despair with the conventional parties. Mostly, this is because of the reasons that Robert sets out. Everything seems so simple from outside and the complexities and limitations of power are perceived as evidence of weakness or hypocrisy rather than reality.
At the moment the country is facing a particularly frustrating time. We are up to our eyes in debt; we need to cut spending; we have already increased taxes and will probably need to do so again; we are running an horrific trade deficit; our standard of living is falling in real terms and there are real limitations on what our politicians can do about all this.
It is so much easier to blame their moral failings than to accept the cold reality that we are in a dreadful mess. It is so much easier to vote for someone offering simplistic solutions. For as long as a significant number of people feel that way UKIP will remain a significant force. Personally I don't see this changing much before the election.
If you stop and think about it with both Labour and Cons on 33% it only takes a fractional move for either to win outright power: from 33% by around 5% for Labour or 7% for the Conservatives. That's a small shift. And I'm personally convinced it will happen for the blues.
The current NHS kerfuffle is not going to be fertile ground for UKIP either, as the public don't know what they would do other than restrict the pool of doctors available and maybe or maybe not privatise it or maybe or maybe not change the basis of funding, depending on which side of the bed Farage got out of today.
The Tories may have individually responsive MPs, but the impression given by the party is still almost indelibly "in power for the well to do". Labour demonstrated the problem wonderfully with their document telling their candidates to talk about the NHS not immigration. The whole "we want to talk about what we want to talk about, not what you want to talk about" is probably intensely annoying to voters, it certainly would be to me.
I agree entirely that there is a massive problem with the continuing relevance of the west, and with it being able to continue the lifestyle to which we have become accustomed, but as NP has said, politicians haven't even found that nettle yet, never mind grasped it. My personal view is we wont be able to continue it, partly for that reason. One of other issues here is that the Asia tigers managed to provide their populations with comparable public services, often far better services that we do, on a fraction of the tax percentage, because they are generating so much wealth.
It is inevitable that a huge organisation which had had massive increases in its budget year on year is going to struggle after a few years of restraint. In England the tories have delivered a 4% increase in health spending in real terms over 4 years, far less than the NHS is used to.
The NHS, like any large organisation, had some low hanging fruit which could be used to make up for the lack of substantial new money for a time but as that is exhausted real problems emerge. We may be at that stage and the "crisis" may be evidence of it but so far it looks and feels like media hype to me.
Useful for Labour though.
How many votes do you think I'm likely to get?
Easy pickings of Lib Dem seats is going to be much harder for the Tories than national swing levels appear as we have seen from the Lord Ashcroft polling.
Labour's task has been made much harder by the SNP surge in Scotland and the fact that it starts from such a dominating position in terms of votes there in 2010.
(As an aside, the Bakken is definitely not shale oil. IIRC, it's a narrow slice of sandstone wedged between two shales.)
UKIP's success or failure in May will depend on how effectively the two main parties can move the conversation away from immigration. How good do you think either of those parties' message discipline is right now?
Last time the Conservatives were 7% ahead and came within a whisker. Because most of the E&W gains by the Tories will be from the yellows and because of Labour's London problems I think 7% will be enough for them to take power. (Scotland of course will only count as against Labour, not going Tory.)
Possibly.
(wasn't there a by-election candidate once who actually got zero votes?)
I am pretty sceptical that meaningful tax raising is actually going to happen, and I actually not believe it should for reasons for competitiveness. But even assuming it was going to happen, look at Labour's policies, the big tax rise that is being talked about is the mansion tax, which is going to raise, lets be honest, the square root of bugger all, even if it raises everything Balls hopes it will (which it wont) it will be enough to pay for the interest on the national debt for a fortnight.
Raising taxes on the rich is largely futile, because we are at the top of the Laffer curve now, almost any tax increase will cause a drop in revenue as the rich move away to more agreeably jurisdictions. Also if you talk about increasing the tax on a millionaire by 5%, 5% of several million pounds pays for a hell of a lot of accountants and lawyers, and its almost certainly going to pay him to fight the changes and work around them. The other problem with the Rich is there aren't enough of them, if you put big tax on them, and they didn't emigrate, it still wouldn't raise enough tax to matter.
We really need to learn from Canada 1994, we actually need government to do less, not a bit of nip and tuck, but just move out of providing whole groups of services completely. Yes, it will be unpopular as hell, no we probably dont have a politician like Jean Chretien with the balls to do it. So in my view we will slowly slip under the water.
Or has the previously famous Scottish thriftiness, work ethic and desire for self improvement completely faded as a result of the welfare state and the desire to live off oil? Did the North Sea Oil boom destroy the Scottish soul?
Attract another few thousand of the Rich though and you could use their tax to throw at the NHS. So which party is going to attract these wealthy few to our shores? Not Labour.
You must start factoring the LibDem losses into your points about the England and Wales Conservative vote share, Mike, because it's the Conservatives who stand to gain most.
"This is a truly dreadful idea from a Labour Party that has lost touch with economic reality"
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/newsbysector/constructionandproperty/11117251/Why-Labours-Mansion-Tax-shows-that-it-has-lost-touch-with-financial-reality.html
Another large chunk was idiotic contracts signed by Labour for PFI and boondongles like aircraft carriers which we couldn't afford either, and which Osborne couldn't cancel because the cost of cancellation was higher than the cost of carrying on.
Yes, the Tories were too timid, but because they got saddled with a load of structural costs run up by Labour which they couldn't cut without throwing away any vague chance of re-election.
http://www.electoralcalculus.co.uk/cgi-bin/usercode.pl?CON=38&TVCON=&LAB=31&TVLAB=&LIB=9&TVLIB=&UKIP=8®ion=All+GB+changed+seats&boundary=2010&seat=--Show+all--&minorparties=Y
1) The tax proposal itself will do Labour no harm, either in London or elsewhere. Those who might be affected (at least in the short term) and who object were not voting Labour anyway.
2) However, Jim Murphy making it clear that London would be paying for Scottish goodies is not a good look for Labour in the south east. If the idea takes hold that London is a cash cow for other areas' benefit, that could be damaging with some voters.
I'm not expecting it to make any difference in practice (I expect Labour to do very well in London this year), but it's one to watch.
If most UKIP votes are in areas of the South East and East Anglia, the Conservative vote starts to become more efficiently distributed.
Like just about everyone else I am forecasting NOM, and am wondering if the betting value lies elsewhere.
There are just not serious about keeping the UK in the EU. Better off out.
Wales seems to be becoming a problem for Burnham. He was attacked on it again on C4 News last night. His response, "I'm here to talk about England".
I'm starting to pity Americans.
Whilst this long election campaign will be bloody tedious, it may (hopefully) be a one-off, whereas they spend half of the time campaigning in the presidential race.
"UKIP's success or failure in May will depend on how effectively the two main parties can move the conversation away from immigration. How good do you think either of those parties' message discipline is right now?"
That's the thread sorted. But you've also got to worry about the EU bureaucrats' discipline.
NHS = good for Labour and good for immigration.
A pity there's a concentration on the politics because for once, there are a few facts sneaking out.
No ifs, no buts...
1. It's not just the top 55,000 houses but those from around £500,000 up who see the Sword of Damocles over their roofs. If you don't believe this go and talk to estate agents in London.
2. Labour become very vulnerable to the charge that if it's £1m now it will be lowered tomorrow.
3. Old Labour's biggest ever blunder was failing to realise how home ownership is beloved of the English. Touch the home at your peril.
4. It's utterly untrue to say that those affected don't vote Labour anyway. You have no evidence for this claim and it is patently untrue. The well-off metropolitan elite are often left-leaning liberal minded: the very people Tony Blair wooed and won.
5. Because a lot of those affected (in the bracket and peering nervously through their letterboxes) are London metropolitan elite they are not simply big businessmen. They are often liberal minded intelligentsia: those with good homes, yes, but who have a social conscience. They are highly influential people who work in television news, newspapers, documentaries, arts, theatre etc. etc. They have a reach well beyond their numbers. And they're not happy.
6. You clearly aren't or haven't been listening to your London Labour MPs http://www.theguardian.com/politics/2014/oct/02/glenda-jackson-london-labour-mps-opposed-mansion-tax
There are reports that a handful of London Labour MPs are in trouble directly over this. See e.g. http://www.hamhigh.co.uk/news/humanitarian_campaign_launched_to_stop_labour_s_mansion_tax_1_3809207 but also word on the ground suggests this to be the case.
7. As you say, the recent declaration by Jim Murphy that this will pay for Scottish nurses is electoral suicide for London Labour. It's an indication of how the wheels may fall off for Labour in this election.
Finally, to the person mentioning the recent YouGov London poll: what poll? When was this published? The last one I saw was three months back.
Really something to boast about there.
http://www1.skysports.com/f1/news/12433/9634837/confirmation-that-there-is-no-korean-grand-prix-on-2015-schedule
Honda are seeing if the rather unfair (although helpful to me, as a Hamilton/Rosberg backer) ruling that every manufacturer but them can develop engines in-season can be overturned:
http://www1.skysports.com/f1/news/12479/9634294/mclaren-honda-in-contact-with-the-fia-about-controversial-2015-engine-loophole
I believe that NI and many Scottish hospitals have worse figures too, so not definitely due to Labour either.
A formula which has made them the most successful advertisers on the planet
Now the election is upon us and the volume of posts is rising wouldn't it be a good idea for posters to use the P&G formula thus making their points brief persuasive and undemanding of their audience
I, for one read and post here because it is the best site for detailed political discussion, and does not just trade soundbites and cliches.
5. Because a lot of those affected (in the bracket and peering nervously through their letterboxes) are London metropolitan elite they are not simply big businessmen. They are often liberal minded intelligentsia: those with good homes, yes, but who have a social conscience. They are highly influential people who work in television news, newspapers, documentaries, arts, theatre etc. etc. They have a reach well beyond their numbers. And they're not happy.
Why?
Do these wealthy influential people with a social conscience only want taxes that don't affect them?
http://newstonoone.blogspot.co.uk/2015/01/bedtime-stories-extending-my-thoughts.html
Don't take it too seriously!
http://thaddeusthesixth.blogspot.co.uk/2015/01/2015-year-of-two-anniversaries.html
Edited extra bit: and now that the modern history's out of the way, time to get some bloody work done.
In a few weeks time I will add the results from my research in Scotland, which is currently in the field and promises to be particularly fascinating.
http://lordashcroftpolls.com/2015/01/predictions-heres-whole-gallery-snapshots/
There are no upsides to our remaining members of the EU. The words 'unmitigated disaster' are a perfect summary of our membership over the last 40 years.
Exactly what is wrong with politics and politicians. They mean - let's keep it in the news and gain a few votes. A summit about the NHS is needed but you'd have to exclude politicians to have a chance of progress.
Problem 1... We're living longer, getting much more fussy, and medicine is better at keeping us alive.
Problem 2 ... The cost of this is increasing rapidly
Porblem 3 ... Politicians only see this through the lens of party advantage. For example, NICE was a logical idea but can be inconvenient politically; therefore it will be ignored when necessary.
The NHS does need an independent inquiry and options need to presented to the public. We will never have that because of the politics involved.
A British led European Alliance giving the French a good thrashing.