SYRIZA to increase Greek minimum wage by 10% from 680 to 751 Euros in direct contravention on the troika requirements. Some how I don't think he is planning on backing down. For added spice they agreed the scrapping of fees for prescriptions and hospital visits, the restoration of collective work agreements, the rehiring of workers laid off in the public sector, the granting of citizenship to migrant children born and raised in Greece.
Where is the cash coming from - Magic Olive Money trees?
Come the 8th May Ed Miliband will be Prime Minister.
Albeit at the head of a shaky coalition.
Almost certainly not, if only because the negotiations will take place over the weekend of 9th/10th May and quite likely well into the next week or even longer. Cam remains PM in this position until Ed can come up with a deal.
I have a punt myself on a Lab-LD-SNP coalition, but after this week's Labour NHS omnishambles I am thinking of shoring my position with a punt on a Tory minority government or LD-Tory. It just seems to me the whole election narrative is going Tory way. Early days of course.
I'll second that - however all my EdM PM bets are for Ed Miliband to be NEXT Prime Minister, not May 8th PM - If they had May 8th on the betslip I'd tear them up.
Eh ?
He'll be negotiating with the SNP and Lib Dems.
What's that got to do with the price of fish ?
But isn't it obvious? Why should Labour reward a narrow regional party that has just destroyed them in electoral terms? All they are doing is pulling the rug from under themselves, not least since the SNP are a rival left wing party. It merely offers the prospect of the regional party replacing them since by dint of its position the regional party can claim more regional influence compared to the rest of the country. And there as well lies the rub, Labour is sacrificing its English Welsh vote to pacify Scotland. If there were no Labour Party in Scotland it might make more sense. Maybe soon there won't be.
|The only way Labour can make a decision on this is if they have a choice, effectively if they have a 20 seat lead on the Tories and have a reasonable chance of forming a government by choosing between the LibDems and SNP.
None of the projections support this. Pretty much every reasonable projection says that Labour + SNP + Plaid > 323 and Labour + LibDem < 323 (quite well under).
There's only two possible governments under these circumstances Labour minority backed by SNP/PLaid or Grand Coalition.
SYRIZA to increase Greek minimum wage by 10% from 680 to 751 Euros in direct contravention on the troika requirements. Some how I don't think he is planning on backing down. For added spice they agreed the scrapping of fees for prescriptions and hospital visits, the restoration of collective work agreements, the rehiring of workers laid off in the public sector, the granting of citizenship to migrant children born and raised in Greece.
They are bonkers. Quite simply bonkers.
Unless they are a front for some colonels looking for a pretext, I suppose.
No. And I don't think anybody is suggesting any suggestion of a deal with the SNP at all.
We're fighting hard for a majority.
But if Labour don't get a majority, then the facts change...
I still think a formal Lab/SNP coalition is extremely unlikely whatever the result, but it's worth considering that the the single largest obstacle to such an arrangement is 41 rancorous, Nat-hating SLab MPs. If their number is drastically reduced...
Agreed. It's an absolute non-starter. SLAB loath the SNP. They'd be more amenable to a coalition with UKIP.
SLAB almost by definition is decimated if Labour need to do a deal with SNP.
I know subsample, subsample, etc but WTF is going on...How can some pollsters have a 20+% lead for SNP in Scotland, Populus has Labour ahead.
A subsample of 180 is more dangerous than a splash around with a ravenous Great White. It alarms me slightly that Peter_the_P's response was 'WOW!' (no offence, Peter).
It alarms me slightly that you seem incapable of differentiating between one poster on here and another, especially when both have been active for at least 8 or 9 years!
Haha but I do apologise most sincerely. Please don't put it down to malice aforethought. My poor ageing eyes struggle at the best of times, and these are not those: Peter_the_Punter and Peter_from_Putney blurred into one even though you are, I'm sure, literally and figuratively polls apart. I think I might have had this blurred vision once before. Ignorantia legis neminem excusat.
Lol!
PfP is a dear friend with whom I have sparred for many years on this Site, Audrey. He and I are known to occupy different points on the political compass but we share a liking for good profitable bet, and that has caused us to be allies more often than not.
He loves to catch people out for using the wrong name. You are merely the latest in a long line to be found guilty, and no doubt fined a notional one pound. It makes me smile too.
No offence caused, none taken, but do take more care in future. You may get away with naming the wrong candidate for Hampstead, but you will never, ever be allowed to confuse your PfPs with your PtPs.
SYRIZA to increase Greek minimum wage by 10% from 680 to 751 Euros in direct contravention on the troika requirements. Some how I don't think he is planning on backing down. For added spice they agreed the scrapping of fees for prescriptions and hospital visits, the restoration of collective work agreements, the rehiring of workers laid off in the public sector, the granting of citizenship to migrant children born and raised in Greece.
From the country that pulled the Olive Tree scam, just can't get themselves off being addicted to the Magic Money Tree.
SYRIZA to increase Greek minimum wage by 10% from 680 to 751 Euros in direct contravention on the troika requirements. Some how I don't think he is planning on backing down. For added spice they agreed the scrapping of fees for prescriptions and hospital visits, the restoration of collective work agreements, the rehiring of workers laid off in the public sector, the granting of citizenship to migrant children born and raised in Greece.
They are bonkers. Quite simply bonkers.
Unless they are a front for some colonels looking for a pretext, I suppose.
SYRIZA to increase Greek minimum wage by 10% from 680 to 751 Euros in direct contravention on the troika requirements. Some how I don't think he is planning on backing down. For added spice they agreed the scrapping of fees for prescriptions and hospital visits, the restoration of collective work agreements, the rehiring of workers laid off in the public sector, the granting of citizenship to migrant children born and raised in Greece.
Where is the cash coming from - Magic Olive Money trees?
It looks increasingly likely that the money is going to come from Russia.
Anyone remember that C4 series from the 80s? A Labour government in desperate straights getting a Soviet bailout? Can't remember the name of it.
SYRIZA to increase Greek minimum wage by 10% from 680 to 751 Euros in direct contravention on the troika requirements. Some how I don't think he is planning on backing down. For added spice they agreed the scrapping of fees for prescriptions and hospital visits, the restoration of collective work agreements, the rehiring of workers laid off in the public sector, the granting of citizenship to migrant children born and raised in Greece.
They are bonkers. Quite simply bonkers.
Unless they are a front for some colonels looking for a pretext, I suppose.
My initial instinct was that they were creating some policies they can later concede, in order to trade-off for counter-concessions elsewhere.
But on second thoughts, I'm not sure they'd get away with that with the Greek public, after promising them all these things. I guess what's happening is that Syriza want to exit the Euro, but need to get the public pissed off enough with Germany that they will support it.
No. And I don't think anybody is suggesting any suggestion of a deal with the SNP at all.
We're fighting hard for a majority.
But if Labour don't get a majority, then the facts change...
I still think a formal Lab/SNP coalition is extremely unlikely whatever the result, but it's worth considering that the the single largest obstacle to such an arrangement is 41 rancorous, Nat-hating SLab MPs. If their number is drastically reduced...
Agreed. It's an absolute non-starter. SLAB loath the SNP. They'd be more amenable to a coalition with UKIP.
SLAB almost by definition is decimated if Labour need to do a deal with SNP.
In that case the survivors would be even more rancorously opposed.
It only takes a majority to repeal the fixed term parliament act.
You don't need to repeal it, if you have a simple majority. Just a vote of confidence, wait 14 days, and hold another vote of confidence.
However, by definition in the scenario we are talking about, no one party (and quite possibly no two parties) can muster a majority. That means you need to agree with another party or parties that now is the best time to hold an election. That wouldn't be easy.
Well, not quite - they just have to agree that holding an election now is preferable to being responsible for providing confidence to a new PM.
Suppose Lab-SNP have a majority, and SNP provide confidence to PM Miliband. At some point they find a pretext [or a genuine reason] to vote against the Westminster government, precipitating a vote of confidence that brings down the Miliband Ministry. What happens next?
Well it's up to the new leader of the Conservatives to try and form a government, but if we assume that the SNP will vote against such a government, and that Labour will also not join them in a grand coalition, or abstain in a vote of confidence, then they also fail to win a vote of confidence and we have a general election.
So in that scenario the timing of a second election would be almost entirely at the discretion of Alex Salmond, as the choice for Labour would be to face an election at that time, or face an election later after propping up the Tories for a while.
Shade ironic to have a chap proposing anti-white quotas in the lead to run a city with a white minority.
As about 60% of medical students are female and about 40% in Leicester are BME, there are now serious discussions on how we can encourage diversity by recruiting more white male doctors. How times have changed when white men are under represented (and I havent seen a Jewish Med Student in years!)
We are not planning quotas, just looking at other ways of indirectly smoothing the path.
Of course A Levels are an imperfect example because they've been gerrymandered to make them easier for girls to pass.
After centuries of male dominance in the medical profession, I can't get too excited about it leaning marginally the other way.
I was more or less following that until we got to the bit about 'A' levels being gerrymandered to make them easier for girls to pass. It's a bit like having what you think is an intelligent and reasonable conversation with someone, who then suddenly blurts out 'I am the reincarnation of Napoleon'.
Mr Bond is 25% crank, 25% insightful and 50% troll. Not a terribly unusual mix on here.
I think the theory is that boys are better at one-off exams than continuous assessment. The current system - as I understand it - has a mixture of both. The change would favour girls (if the above theory is correct), but that doesn't mean it's less "fair" than the old system which favoured boys.
I am not the reincarnation of Napolean.
That's a broadly correct summary, yes. (Including the part about Napoleon; I identify more with Wellington because he, you know, won. I don't buy any of the guff about Germans either - they weren't able to win in 1813-1815 unless they had either a huge numerical advantage over the French or a more skilled ally on the field).
The disparity between male and female IQ distributions is well known, and it applies to quite a few other things too I believe, such as height and shoe size. But a going-in objective of qualification designers in recent years has been that there should be no male / female distinctions in results. The way to achieve this would thus be to remove the role of intelligence from the syllabus, for example by continuous assessment of work completed under supervision rather than of what you are capable of coming up with in an exam.
There must also always have been more male Fs and Us than female, but since these are all just lumped together as fails, it was probably less conspicuous.
So currently Labour lead with Populus, ICM, Opinium, Ipsos Mori.
It's tied with YouGov, Ashcroft (although under previous methodology Lab have 1 pt lead), TNS-BRMB
And the Tories have to rely on a slender 1 pt lead with *ahem* Survation (UKIP at 23% - yeah right) and (fair enough) ComRes.
Yes but your list shows that most of the polls with Labour leads are the plder ones - ICM, Opinium and Mori. The recent position shows movement to the blues. Still if it keeps your hopes up.
Move to the BLues? Where? I see a decline in Labour share for sure, but the Blues are still flatlining I'm afraid.
I saw this urban myth being repeated yesterday and it's time to scotch it.
The last week's polling shows them on 32.6% compared to the previous 3 weeks of 31.7%. Small beer you may say, but an increase of 1% nonetheless. Indeed the profile of the last two weeks looks like this:
Conservative share: Past week: 32.6% Preceding week: 31.4%
An increase in the Conservative share of 1.2% in this last week. Sorry to replace your invented meme with fact.
Its the troika who are bonkers for even bothering to talk to them. It's giving them a credibility they absolutely do not deserve (as well as allowed leftists elsewhere to leverage up what is going on)
After centuries of male dominance in the medical profession, I can't get too excited about it leaning marginally the other way.
I feel the same way about the ballerinas of the Royal Ballet. After centuries of thin young woman dominance, I can't get too excited about them being festooned with sash weights and dumb bells to give fat old women an equal opportunity to look no worse.
Come the 8th May Ed Miliband will be Prime Minister.
Albeit at the head of a shaky coalition.
Almost certainly not, if only because the negotiations will take place over the weekend of 9th/10th May and quite likely well into the next week or even longer. Cam remains PM in this position until Ed can come up with a deal.
It just seems to me the whole election narrative is going Tory way. Early days of course.
I'll second that - however all my EdM PM bets are for Ed Miliband to be NEXT Prime Minister, not May 8th PM - If they had May 8th on the betslip I'd tear them up.
Eh ?
He'll be negotiating with the SNP and Lib Dems.
What's that got to do with the price of fish ?
But isn't it obvious? Why should Labour reward a narrow regional party that has just destroyed them in electoral terms? All they are doing is pulling the rug from under themselves, not least since the SNP are a rival left wing party. It merely offers the prospect of the regional party replacing them since by dint of its position the regional party can claim more regional influence compared to the rest of the country. And there as well lies the rub, Labour is sacrificing its English Welsh vote to pacify Scotland. If there were no Labour Party in Scotland it might make more sense. Maybe soon there won't be.
|The only way Labour can make a decision on this is if they have a choice, effectively if they have a 20 seat lead on the Tories and have a reasonable chance of forming a government by choosing between the LibDems and SNP.
None of the projections support this. Pretty much every reasonable projection says that Labour + SNP + Plaid > 323 and Labour + LibDem < 323 (quite well under).
There's only two possible governments under these circumstances Labour minority backed by SNP/PLaid or Grand Coalition.
Grand coalition would be amusing. Who would lose? The party without the PM as has happened in Germany?
i would also caution about Sadiq's prospects in a mayoral election campaign.
He is by no means a charmer. He will find it difficult to reach out to non-Labour, non-Muslim voters. He doesn't have a personality like Boris's or Ken's, that can appeal cross-party.
He is, at best, a Labour machine politician, and, at worst, a bombastic, narrow-minded opportunist.
On topic - interesting odds...but isn't Sadiq's path to the Mayoralty quite a difficult one?
If he loses his seat in May, then he will be tarnished as a "loser" and you can't see Labour selecting him for the Mayoralty.
If he wins his seat in May, that would suggest the Tories haven't broken through to capture seats like his with a 2.5k majority and aren't going to form a majority, so he would likely be a cabinet minister in a Labour govt or Labour-led govt. Why would he give that up for a punt at the Mayoralty, which could be difficult for Labour mid-term?
So surely for the tip to pay off, he has to win Tooting, but Labour has to be out of government. That's not impossible, it happened in 2010. But obviously on top of that he'd have to win the selection and the election, again not impossible...
With the threat from islamic terrorists as high as it's ever been, a muslim mayor who favours policies that discriminate in favour of non white Londoners is probably the worst thing that can happen to the capital
Ukrainian Armed Forces Chief of Staff Lieutenant General Victor Muzhenko confirms there aren't, and never have been, Russian combat units in the Ukraine. Another example where our leaders and the supposedly free press have been systematically lying to engineer us into a conflict.
Truly a devastating counter blow to those that suggest members of the Russian military are fighting in Eastern Ukraine
we have only the involvement of some members of the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation
I wonder where on earth the idea came that some members of the Armed Forces of Russia where fighting in Eastern Ukraine. I can't possibly imagine.
SYRIZA to increase Greek minimum wage by 10% from 680 to 751 Euros in direct contravention on the troika requirements. Some how I don't think he is planning on backing down. For added spice they agreed the scrapping of fees for prescriptions and hospital visits, the restoration of collective work agreements, the rehiring of workers laid off in the public sector, the granting of citizenship to migrant children born and raised in Greece.
Where is the cash coming from - Magic Olive Money trees?
It looks increasingly likely that the money is going to come from Russia.
Anyone remember that C4 series from the 80s? A Labour government in desperate straights getting a Soviet bailout? Can't remember the name of it.
|The only way Labour can make a decision on this is if they have a choice, effectively if they have a 20 seat lead on the Tories and have a reasonable chance of forming a government by choosing between the LibDems and SNP.
None of the projections support this. Pretty much every reasonable projection says that Labour + SNP + Plaid > 323 and Labour + LibDem < 323 (quite well under).
There's only two possible governments under these circumstances Labour minority backed by SNP/PLaid or Grand Coalition.
Grand coalition would be amusing. Who would lose? The party without the PM as has happened in Germany?
Which is why they would have no option but trying to form a government with SNP support. It is the lesser of two bad outcomes for Labour but as they have no other choice, they will need to take it.
It only takes a majority to repeal the fixed term parliament act.
You don't need to repeal it, if you have a simple majority. Just a vote of confidence, wait 14 days, and hold another vote of confidence.
However, by definition in the scenario we are talking about, no one party (and quite possibly no two parties) can muster a majority. That means you need to agree with another party or parties that now is the best time to hold an election. That wouldn't be easy.
Well, not quite - they just have to agree that holding an election now is preferable to being responsible for providing confidence to a new PM.
Suppose Lab-SNP have a majority, and SNP provide confidence to PM Miliband. At some point they find a pretext [or a genuine reason] to vote against the Westminster government, precipitating a vote of confidence that brings down the Miliband Ministry. What happens next?
Well it's up to the new leader of the Conservatives to try and form a government, but if we assume that the SNP will vote against such a government, and that Labour will also not join them in a grand coalition, or abstain in a vote of confidence, then they also fail to win a vote of confidence and we have a general election.
So in that scenario the timing of a second election would be almost entirely at the discretion of Alex Salmond, as the choice for Labour would be to face an election at that time, or face an election later after propping up the Tories for a while.
Yes, but you are assuming that the other parties would play ball and vote with the SNP to bring down the Labour government. If some of them abstain in the vote of confidence ("Now is not the time.. financial markets.. stability..."), the government could stagger on.
No. And I don't think anybody is suggesting any suggestion of a deal with the SNP at all.
We're fighting hard for a majority.
But if Labour don't get a majority, then the facts change...
I still think a formal Lab/SNP coalition is extremely unlikely whatever the result, but it's worth considering that the the single largest obstacle to such an arrangement is 41 rancorous, Nat-hating SLab MPs. If their number is drastically reduced...
Agreed. It's an absolute non-starter. SLAB loath the SNP. They'd be more amenable to a coalition with UKIP.
SLAB almost by definition is decimated if Labour need to do a deal with SNP.
Indeed, the SLAB will have become a SLICE.
Pedantically, decimate = reduce by a tenth, not to a tenth!
So currently Labour lead with Populus, ICM, Opinium, Ipsos Mori.
It's tied with YouGov, Ashcroft (although under previous methodology Lab have 1 pt lead), TNS-BRMB
And the Tories have to rely on a slender 1 pt lead with *ahem* Survation (UKIP at 23% - yeah right) and (fair enough) ComRes.
Yes but your list shows that most of the polls with Labour leads are the plder ones - ICM, Opinium and Mori. The recent position shows movement to the blues. Still if it keeps your hopes up.
On the NHS, Lord Darzai is wrong and most voters are staunchly anti privatisation.
Nope, most voters are simply pro 'not getting a bill for healthcare' i.e. free at the point of use. As long as that continues, I doubt they're really bothered who provides it.
It's interesting that university students are now picking much more employable subjects now they're putting their own money forward. That is, in turn, forcing universities to get more competitive about how good their courses are. Perhaps a small fee (£5 for a GP visit) for the NHS might make health consumers start to be more focused on what they are getting for their money. Because right now the standards of politeness, competency and administrative ease are often shockingly poor. Many receptionist staff seem to think of the patients as a nuisance to be either rushed through the system as quick as possible, or rejected, rather than the people paying their wages.
All evidence points to putting a fee on seeing primary care givers makes people put off cheap primary care medical checks which results in more people ending up in expensive secondary care.
So currently Labour lead with Populus, ICM, Opinium, Ipsos Mori.
It's tied with YouGov, Ashcroft (although under previous methodology Lab have 1 pt lead), TNS-BRMB
And the Tories have to rely on a slender 1 pt lead with *ahem* Survation (UKIP at 23% - yeah right) and (fair enough) ComRes.
Yes but your list shows that most of the polls with Labour leads are the plder ones - ICM, Opinium and Mori. The recent position shows movement to the blues. Still if it keeps your hopes up.
On the NHS, Lord Darzai is wrong and most voters are staunchly anti privatisation.
Move to the BLues? Where? I see a decline in Labour share for sure, but the Blues are still flatlining I'm afraid.
Wrong - most voters want good treatment free - it's only the unions who want to protect restrictive practice and inefficiency. Twas ever thus. Even Labour apparently supports 5% private provision according to Burnham - who then ludicrously claims that 6% is beyond the pale.
SYRIZA to increase Greek minimum wage by 10% from 680 to 751 Euros in direct contravention on the troika requirements. Some how I don't think he is planning on backing down. For added spice they agreed the scrapping of fees for prescriptions and hospital visits, the restoration of collective work agreements, the rehiring of workers laid off in the public sector, the granting of citizenship to migrant children born and raised in Greece.
They are bonkers. Quite simply bonkers.
Unless they are a front for some colonels looking for a pretext, I suppose.
My initial instinct was that they were creating some policies they can later concede, in order to trade-off for counter-concessions elsewhere.
But on second thoughts, I'm not sure they'd get away with that with the Greek public, after promising them all these things. I guess what's happening is that Syriza want to exit the Euro, but need to get the public pissed off enough with Germany that they will support it.
How soon b4 Milibad trades in Hollande for the Greek bloke?
So currently Labour lead with Populus, ICM, Opinium, Ipsos Mori.
It's tied with YouGov, Ashcroft (although under previous methodology Lab have 1 pt lead), TNS-BRMB
And the Tories have to rely on a slender 1 pt lead with *ahem* Survation (UKIP at 23% - yeah right) and (fair enough) ComRes.
Yes but your list shows that most of the polls with Labour leads are the plder ones - ICM, Opinium and Mori. The recent position shows movement to the blues. Still if it keeps your hopes up.
Move to the BLues? Where? I see a decline in Labour share for sure, but the Blues are still flatlining I'm afraid.
I saw this urban myth being repeated yesterday and it's time to scotch it.
The last week's polling shows them on 32.6% compared to the previous 3 weeks of 31.7%. Small beer you may say, but an increase of 1% nonetheless. Indeed the profile of the last two weeks looks like this:
Conservative share: Past week: 32.6% Preceding week: 31.4%
An increase in the Conservative share of 1.2% in this last week. Sorry to replace your invented meme with fact.
I know subsample, subsample, etc but WTF is going on...How can some pollsters have a 20+% lead for SNP in Scotland, Populus has Labour ahead.
A subsample of 180 is more dangerous than a splash around with a ravenous Great White. It alarms me slightly that Peter_the_P's response was 'WOW!' (no offence, Peter).
It alarms me slightly that you seem incapable of differentiating between one poster on here and another, especially when both have been active for at least 8 or 9 years!
Haha but I do apologise most sincerely. Please don't put it down to malice aforethought. My poor ageing eyes struggle at the best of times, and these are not those: Peter_the_Punter and Peter_from_Putney blurred into one even though you are, I'm sure, literally and figuratively polls apart. I think I might have had this blurred vision once before. Ignorantia legis neminem excusat.
No offence caused, none taken, but do take more care in future. You may get away with naming the wrong candidate for Hampstead, but you will never, ever be allowed to confuse your PfPs with your PtPs.
Ukrainian Armed Forces Chief of Staff Lieutenant General Victor Muzhenko confirms there aren't, and never have been, Russian combat units in the Ukraine. Another example where our leaders and the supposedly free press have been systematically lying to engineer us into a conflict.
Truly a devastating counter blow to those that suggest members of the Russian military are fighting in Eastern Ukraine
we have only the involvement of some members of the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation
that's not what he said - you have chosen to quote from the Kremlin funded "think tank" of course - but then the facts are not of interest here merely the promotion of an agenda - he was discussing the particular action around Debaltseve - as I have family in Donetsk I can assure you nobody in E Ukraine has any illusions about who is there - the endless amount of ammunition, Russian equipment not used by any other army and the presence of Russian conscripts is not a figment of febrile EU officials' imaginations whatever the Putin Kipper tendency think
So currently Labour lead with Populus, ICM, Opinium, Ipsos Mori.
It's tied with YouGov, Ashcroft (although under previous methodology Lab have 1 pt lead), TNS-BRMB
And the Tories have to rely on a slender 1 pt lead with *ahem* Survation (UKIP at 23% - yeah right) and (fair enough) ComRes.
Yes but your list shows that most of the polls with Labour leads are the plder ones - ICM, Opinium and Mori. The recent position shows movement to the blues. Still if it keeps your hopes up.
Move to the BLues? Where? I see a decline in Labour share for sure, but the Blues are still flatlining I'm afraid.
I saw this urban myth being repeated yesterday and it's time to scotch it.
The last week's polling shows them on 32.6% compared to the previous 3 weeks of 31.7%. Small beer you may say, but an increase of 1% nonetheless. Indeed the profile of the last two weeks looks like this:
Conservative share: Past week: 32.6% Preceding week: 31.4%
An increase in the Conservative share of 1.2% in this last week. Sorry to replace your invented meme with fact.
Denial is not a river in Egypt etc. etc. A 1% move in a polling average over a week is significant. The move fits the trend. But feel free not to extrapolate, if it makes you feel better.
So currently Labour lead with Populus, ICM, Opinium, Ipsos Mori.
It's tied with YouGov, Ashcroft (although under previous methodology Lab have 1 pt lead), TNS-BRMB
And the Tories have to rely on a slender 1 pt lead with *ahem* Survation (UKIP at 23% - yeah right) and (fair enough) ComRes.
Yes but your list shows that most of the polls with Labour leads are the plder ones - ICM, Opinium and Mori. The recent position shows movement to the blues. Still if it keeps your hopes up.
Move to the BLues? Where? I see a decline in Labour share for sure, but the Blues are still flatlining I'm afraid.
I saw this urban myth being repeated yesterday and it's time to scotch it.
The last week's polling shows them on 32.6% compared to the previous 3 weeks of 31.7%. Small beer you may say, but an increase of 1% nonetheless. Indeed the profile of the last two weeks looks like this:
Conservative share: Past week: 32.6% Preceding week: 31.4%
An increase in the Conservative share of 1.2% in this last week. Sorry to replace your invented meme with fact.
1. You are comparing apples with flamingos because some pollsters only report one poll per month.
2. If you look at the last 18 months or so you can see that the Tory vote share fluctuates around a bit, but has basically gone nowhere, while the Labour vote has dropped unevenly.
You need much stronger evidence than one week of apples to prove a change in that pattern.
3. The recent change in the lead, however, is more robust, and a quick glance at the past opinion polls shows that this is the Conservative's best week in the polling for three years, when they were benefiting from the Vetogasm.
It only takes a majority to repeal the fixed term parliament act.
You don't need to repeal it, if you have a simple majority. Just a vote of confidence, wait 14 days, and hold another vote of confidence.
However, by definition in the scenario we are talking about, no one party (and quite possibly no two parties) can muster a majority. That means you need to agree with another party or parties that now is the best time to hold an election. That wouldn't be easy.
Well, not quite - they just have to agree that holding an election now is preferable to being responsible for providing confidence to a new PM.
Suppose Lab-SNP have a majority, and SNP provide confidence to PM Miliband. At some point they find a pretext [or a genuine reason] to vote against the Westminster government, precipitating a vote of confidence that brings down the Miliband Ministry. What happens next?
Well it's up to the new leader of the Conservatives to try and form a government, but if we assume that the SNP will vote against such a government, and that Labour will also not join them in a grand coalition, or abstain in a vote of confidence, then they also fail to win a vote of confidence and we have a general election.
So in that scenario the timing of a second election would be almost entirely at the discretion of Alex Salmond, as the choice for Labour would be to face an election at that time, or face an election later after propping up the Tories for a while.
Yes, but you are assuming that the other parties would play ball and vote with the SNP to bring down the Labour government. If some of them abstain in the vote of confidence ("Now is not the time.. financial markets.. stability..."), the government could stagger on.
If there's one thing politicians can do and do well it's delay and so forth
So currently Labour lead with Populus, ICM, Opinium, Ipsos Mori.
It's tied with YouGov, Ashcroft (although under previous methodology Lab have 1 pt lead), TNS-BRMB
And the Tories have to rely on a slender 1 pt lead with *ahem* Survation (UKIP at 23% - yeah right) and (fair enough) ComRes.
Yes but your list shows that most of the polls with Labour leads are the plder ones - ICM, Opinium and Mori. The recent position shows movement to the blues. Still if it keeps your hopes up.
On the NHS, Lord Darzai is wrong and most voters are staunchly anti privatisation.
Nope, most voters are simply pro 'not getting a bill for healthcare' i.e. free at the point of use. As long as that continues, I doubt they're really bothered who provides it.
It's interesting that university students are now picking much more employable subjects now they're putting their own money forward. That is, in turn, forcing universities to get more competitive about how good their courses are. Perhaps a small fee (£5 for a GP visit) for the NHS might make health consumers start to be more focused on what they are getting for their money. Because right now the standards of politeness, competency and administrative ease are often shockingly poor. Many receptionist staff seem to think of the patients as a nuisance to be either rushed through the system as quick as possible, or rejected, rather than the people paying their wages.
All evidence points to putting a fee on seeing primary care givers makes people put off cheap primary care medical checks which results in more people ending up in expensive secondary care.
Is this true for France, Australia and other countries?
The Labour PM in 'A Very British Coup' was such a loon, I was practically rooting for the coup by the end. (See also: Robert Lindsay's character in 'GBH'.)
It only takes a majority to repeal the fixed term parliament act.
You don't need to repeal it, if you have a simple majority. Just a vote of confidence, wait 14 days, and hold another vote of confidence.
However, by definition in the scenario we are talking about, no one party (and quite possibly no two parties) can muster a majority. That means you need to agree with another party or parties that now is the best time to hold an election. That wouldn't be easy.
Well, not quite - they just have to agree that holding an election now is preferable to being responsible for providing confidence to a new PM.
Suppose Lab-SNP have a majority, and SNP provide confidence to PM Miliband. At some point they find a pretext [or a genuine reason] to vote against the Westminster government, precipitating a vote of confidence that brings down the Miliband Ministry. What happens next?
Well it's up to the new leader of the Conservatives to try and form a government, but if we assume that the SNP will vote against such a government, and that Labour will also not join them in a grand coalition, or abstain in a vote of confidence, then they also fail to win a vote of confidence and we have a general election.
So in that scenario the timing of a second election would be almost entirely at the discretion of Alex Salmond, as the choice for Labour would be to face an election at that time, or face an election later after propping up the Tories for a while.
Yes, but you are assuming that the other parties would play ball and vote with the SNP to bring down the Labour government. If some of them abstain in the vote of confidence ("Now is not the time.. financial markets.. stability..."), the government could stagger on.
I'm a simple soul Richard. Would the main Opposition party really run away from an election in those circumstances? It's all too Machiavellian for me, I think.
Those starting with a blank sheet would do better to take the 6s. Now Coe is out of the way, any reasonable Labour choice is likely to win, and Khan certainly qualifies.
Sorry to break this cozy Labour shoe-in but I'll add just one note of caution to this. As we have seen, the London mayoral voting does not follow on the same party lines as other elections. Personality, independence and even an element of the maverick seem to attract support (both Boris and Ken are cases in point).
Whilst no-one significant along the above lines may yet have declared, there is still time for that to happen. I expect everyone is waiting to get past May 7th first.
An independent maverick type such as a Lord Sugar is always a possibility
That's the slight danger with punting too much money on a Labour candidate as shoe-in, in my humble opinion.
I agree, I can't at the moment see any obvious reach-out-and-touch-me Tory in the wings. But an independent with money and clout is another matter.
At the risk of provoking a response from Socrates, Sadiq may not be everyone's cup of tea although I personally think he's a marvellous example of a moderate Muslim, and all power to him for voting for gay marriage for which he received death threats.
He had an association in the past with Babar Ahmed, extradited to the US and now serving time for various terrorist offences. When he has been questioned in the past about his links, his answers have not been tremendously convincing.
Now I don't know whether this amounts to anything or not but this is the sort of thing that could cause problems in the scrutiny of a campaign - remember how damaged Livingstone was when his tax arrangements came out.
|The only way Labour can make a decision on this is if they have a choice, effectively if they have a 20 seat lead on the Tories and have a reasonable chance of forming a government by choosing between the LibDems and SNP.
None of the projections support this. Pretty much every reasonable projection says that Labour + SNP + Plaid > 323 and Labour + LibDem < 323 (quite well under).
There's only two possible governments under these circumstances Labour minority backed by SNP/PLaid or Grand Coalition.
Grand coalition would be amusing. Who would lose? The party without the PM as has happened in Germany?
Which is why they would have no option but trying to form a government with SNP support. It is the lesser of two bad outcomes for Labour but as they have no other choice, they will need to take it.
But the potential Grand Coalition could break either way. Could be Miliband as PM. OK any Grand Coalition sounds unlikely, but it happens in Germany and it will all depend on the numbers.
Those starting with a blank sheet would do better to take the 6s. Now Coe is out of the way, any reasonable Labour choice is likely to win, and Khan certainly qualifies.
Sorry to break this cozy Labour shoe-in but I'll add just one note of caution to this. As we have seen, the London mayoral voting does not follow on the same party lines as other elections. Personality, independence and even an element of the maverick seem to attract support (both Boris and Ken are cases in point).
Whilst no-one significant along the above lines may yet have declared, there is still time for that to happen. I expect everyone is waiting to get past May 7th first.
An independent maverick type such as a Lord Sugar is always a possibility
That's the slight danger with punting too much money on a Labour candidate as shoe-in, in my humble opinion.
I agree, I can't at the moment see any obvious reach-out-and-touch-me Tory in the wings. But an independent with money and clout is another matter.
At the risk of provoking a response from Socrates, Sadiq may not be everyone's cup of tea although I personally think he's a marvellous example of a moderate Muslim, and all power to him for voting for gay marriage for which he received death threats.
He had an association in the past with Babar Ahmed, extradited to the US and now serving time for various terrorist offences. When he has been questioned in the past about his links, his answers have not been tremendously convincing.
Now I don't know whether this amounts to anything or not but this is the sort of thing that could cause problems in the scrutiny of a campaign - remember how damaged Livingstone was when his tax arrangements came out.
Personally I prefer Tessa Jowell.
Seb Coe is the only obvious non Labour candidate that springs to mind, and he's ruled himself out.
Looking at Russia in the round, they've taken Sevastopol, are battling hard for Ukraine and control the black Sea - they're now looking carefully at the best way to control Greece.
It's fortunate for Norway and Sweden that Vlad's decided on a southern opening strategy
Those starting with a blank sheet would do better to take the 6s. Now Coe is out of the way, any reasonable Labour choice is likely to win, and Khan certainly qualifies.
Sorry to break this cozy Labour shoe-in but I'll add just one note of caution to this. As we have seen, the London mayoral voting does not follow on the same party lines as other elections. Personality, independence and even an element of the maverick seem to attract support (both Boris and Ken are cases in point).
Whilst no-one significant along the above lines may yet have declared, there is still time for that to happen. I expect everyone is waiting to get past May 7th first.
An independent maverick type such as a Lord Sugar is always a possibility
That's the slight danger with punting too much money on a Labour candidate as shoe-in, in my humble opinion.
I agree, I can't at the moment see any obvious reach-out-and-touch-me Tory in the wings. But an independent with money and clout is another matter.
At the risk of provoking a response from Socrates, Sadiq may not be everyone's cup of tea although I personally think he's a marvellous example of a moderate Muslim, and all power to him for voting for gay marriage for which he received death threats.
He had an association in the past with Babar Ahmed, extradited to the US and now serving time for various terrorist offences. When he has been questioned in the past about his links, his answers have not been tremendously convincing.
Now I don't know whether this amounts to anything or not but this is the sort of thing that could cause problems in the scrutiny of a campaign - remember how damaged Livingstone was when his tax arrangements came out.
Personally I prefer Tessa Jowell.
How anyone can draw the conclusion he is some kind of shining example of moderation with his extremist links and anti white racist policy ideas is beyond me
Zac Goldsmith or Karen Brady would be good choices from the tories or maybe as ukip/tory backed independents ?
So currently Labour lead with Populus, ICM, Opinium, Ipsos Mori.
It's tied with YouGov, Ashcroft (although under previous methodology Lab have 1 pt lead), TNS-BRMB
And the Tories have to rely on a slender 1 pt lead with *ahem* Survation (UKIP at 23% - yeah right) and (fair enough) ComRes.
Yes but your list shows that most of the polls with Labour leads are the plder ones - ICM, Opinium and Mori. The recent position shows movement to the blues. Still if it keeps your hopes up.
Move to the BLues? Where? I see a decline in Labour share for sure, but the Blues are still flatlining I'm afraid.
I saw this urban myth being repeated yesterday and it's time to scotch it.
The last week's polling shows them on 32.6% compared to the previous 3 weeks of 31.7%. Small beer you may say, but an increase of 1% nonetheless. Indeed the profile of the last two weeks looks like this:
Conservative share: Past week: 32.6% Preceding week: 31.4%
An increase in the Conservative share of 1.2% in this last week. Sorry to replace your invented meme with fact.
Sorry to go off-topic, but I'd like to reply to this post by foxinsoxuk from last night in response to something I wrote, because it raises an important point:
It is not as simple as that. The NHS has to think wider and balance the short term interest with the wider public health and long term interest.
So if a locality outsources all its knee and hip surgery to a private ISTC, the waiting list will come down, and the individuals will probably benefit (though some ISTCs have not worked too well, google Shepton Mallet scandal or Birkdale) but there will be no training of Medical Students, Junior Doctors or Theatre Nurses. It will also mean that the local NHS unit may not be viable in offering a fracture service as without the bread and butter work it is impossible to maintain the staffing and expertise required to run the out of hours. You think GP out of hours is a mess, wait until your local A and E closes because the fracture unit is no longer viable.
This is wrong, wrong, wrong! What essentially it is saying is that the NHS should pay over the odds for the routine knee and hip surgery in order to subsidise other things, such a training and out-of-hours staffing.
But that is not in any sense an argument for not using private providers. It's an argument for recognising that training and A & E are both expensive and essential. If the NHS wants doctors to be trained, which of course it does, then it needs to factor those training costs into its budget. If the most effective way of doing that is for private routine-surgery providers to provide training as well, then write that into the contract. Similarly, if out-of-hours service is expensive to provide, then it is expensive to provide and the budget should be set to recognise that. Paying more for routine work, in order to bodge the budget for out-of-hours work, is simply obfuscating the problem with artificially-inflated transfer pricing.
Of course fox is right when he says this is not a simple calculation, and that the NHS commissioning body has to look at the whole picture. Indeed so, but you don't do that by fiddling the budget or by automatically assuming an NHS provider should be preferred. You do it by working out what you want, as a whole, and figuring out the most efficient way of getting it.
You are entirely correct on what should happen, but cutting the tariff for elective orthopaedics or handing all the elective work to private sector providers will end up with emergency work failing.
One big problem is that emergency work over 2008 levels of activity is paid at 30% (I think) of tariff. You may have noticed there has been something of an increase in demand in the last few years and nothing has been even suggested to improve this situation.
Btw Migration Watch named two seats as being most likely to be heavily affected by immigrant voters
Brent Central Brentford and Isleworth.
Which is reassuring as I'm on Labour in both these.
Yes, and pace the earlier discussion I don't see Tooting being anything other than a Labour hold. The inner-London suburbs are I think the one (possibly only) area of the country where there will be guaranteed successes for Labour. The main factor, rather than there being lots of immigrant voters, is the resentment of generation-rent.
Is there some stealth social engineering going on to begin with, that we should end up with a 60:40 female:male ratio? AIUI medicine is a high IQ profession, and women's IQ is the same on average, but bunched around the middle. So there are fewer female geniuses than male, fewer female idiots than male, and on average the same score.
This being so I'd expect broadly to see more men than women in the medical profession. What would temper this is if it were so small as a field that there were more suitable applicants than places.
There are more women then men at Cambridge University, for example, but there are only 3,000 a year let in and probably 15,000 with equivalent A-Level grades. Of those 15,000 you'd expect there to be more men than women, so it's plausible there could be 11,000 men and 4,000 women, of whom 1,000 and 2,000 end up there.
Of course A Levels are an imperfect example because they've been gerrymandered to make them easier for girls to pass.
After centuries of male dominance in the medical profession, I can't get too excited about it leaning marginally the other way.
I was more or less following that until we got to the bit about 'A' levels being gerrymandered to make them easier for girls to pass. It's a bit like having what you think is an intelligent and reasonable conversation with someone, who then suddenly blurts out 'I am the reincarnation of Napoleon'.
How anyone can draw the conclusion he is some kind of shining example of moderation with his extremist links and anti white racist policy ideas is beyond me
Zac Goldsmith or Karen Brady would be good choices from the tories or maybe as ukip/tory backed independents ?
Mr. Woodpecker, modular approaches and many exams, and coursework, do make it easier for girls, in the same way one-off all-important exams at the end make it easier for boys.
Is there some stealth social engineering going on to begin with, that we should end up with a 60:40 female:male ratio? AIUI medicine is a high IQ profession, and women's IQ is the same on average, but bunched around the middle. So there are fewer female geniuses than male, fewer female idiots than male, and on average the same score.
This being so I'd expect broadly to see more men than women in the medical profession. What would temper this is if it were so small as a field that there were more suitable applicants than places.
There are more women then men at Cambridge University, for example, but there are only 3,000 a year let in and probably 15,000 with equivalent A-Level grades. Of those 15,000 you'd expect there to be more men than women, so it's plausible there could be 11,000 men and 4,000 women, of whom 1,000 and 2,000 end up there.
Of course A Levels are an imperfect example because they've been gerrymandered to make them easier for girls to pass.
After centuries of male dominance in the medical profession, I can't get too excited about it leaning marginally the other way.
I was more or less following that until we got to the bit about 'A' levels being gerrymandered to make them easier for girls to pass. It's a bit like having what you think is an intelligent and reasonable conversation with someone, who then suddenly blurts out 'I am the reincarnation of Napoleon'.
Very good!
I am not the reincarnation of Napoleon. But I am his 4-greats-granddaughter.
Also, why do people assume that women can only pass exams if they're gerry mandered.
Interesting report on the Today programme this morning about why GPs are so fed up.
Is there some stealth social engineering going on to begin with, that we should end up with a 60:40 female:male ratio? AIUI medicine is a high IQ profession, and women's IQ is the same on average, but bunched around the middle. So there are fewer female geniuses than male, fewer female idiots than male, and on average the same score.
This being so I'd expect broadly to see more men than women in the medical profession. What would temper this is if it were so small as a field that there were more suitable applicants than places.
There are more women then men at Cambridge University, for example, but there are only 3,000 a year let in and probably 15,000 with equivalent A-Level grades. Of those 15,000 you'd expect there to be more men than women, so it's plausible there could be 11,000 men and 4,000 women, of whom 1,000 and 2,000 end up there.
Of course A Levels are an imperfect example because they've been gerrymandered to make them easier for girls to pass. After centuries of male dominance in the medical profession, I can't get too excited about it leaning marginally the other way.
I was more or less following that until we got to the bit about 'A' levels being gerrymandered to make them easier for girls to pass. It's a bit like having what you think is an intelligent and reasonable conversation with someone, who then suddenly blurts out 'I am the reincarnation of Napoleon'.
Medicine is less quantitative, more women study biology than physics, and is also a caring profession hence more women.
Perhaps the long payback time for such an expensive qualification is also a turn off for a potential future sole earner.
How anyone can draw the conclusion he is some kind of shining example of moderation with his extremist links and anti white racist policy ideas is beyond me
Zac Goldsmith or Karen Brady would be good choices from the tories or maybe as ukip/tory backed independents ?
Think I would lose my tory voting virginity if Khan is the labour candidate
His support for racial preferences in hiring decisions is truly shocking in the 21st Century. Reminiscent of "No Irish need apply".
I had enough of that sort of community politics with Livingstone. I want a Mayor who governs for all Londoners not just those who fit some special "victim" category that they can patronise and condescend to.
So currently Labour lead with Populus, ICM, Opinium, Ipsos Mori.
It's tied with YouGov, Ashcroft (although under previous methodology Lab have 1 pt lead), TNS-BRMB
And the Tories have to rely on a slender 1 pt lead with *ahem* Survation (UKIP at 23% - yeah right) and (fair enough) ComRes.
Yes but your list shows that most of the polls with Labour leads are the plder ones - ICM, Opinium and Mori. The recent position shows movement to the blues. Still if it keeps your hopes up.
Move to the BLues? Where? I see a decline in Labour share for sure, but the Blues are still flatlining I'm afraid.
I saw this urban myth being repeated yesterday and it's time to scotch it.
The last week's polling shows them on 32.6% compared to the previous 3 weeks of 31.7%. Small beer you may say, but an increase of 1% nonetheless. Indeed the profile of the last two weeks looks like this:
Conservative share: Past week: 32.6% Preceding week: 31.4%
An increase in the Conservative share of 1.2% in this last week. Sorry to replace your invented meme with fact.
How anyone can draw the conclusion he is some kind of shining example of moderation with his extremist links and anti white racist policy ideas is beyond me
Zac Goldsmith or Karen Brady would be good choices from the tories or maybe as ukip/tory backed independents ?
On some matters Sadiq is a good deal less extremist and anti-libertarian than some on here.
How many of you kippers support gay marriage?
I'm not a kipper, but then I'm not a pink "conservative" either. I could care less about Guido's views, there is only one question that really matters, "did he do it ?", all the rest is just PR and media management. I assume from your answer you think he is blameless ?
On topic - interesting odds...but isn't Sadiq's path to the Mayoralty quite a difficult one?
If he loses his seat in May, then he will be tarnished as a "loser" and you can't see Labour selecting him for the Mayoralty.
If he wins his seat in May, that would suggest the Tories haven't broken through to capture seats like his with a 2.5k majority and aren't going to form a majority, so he would likely be a cabinet minister in a Labour govt or Labour-led govt. Why would he give that up for a punt at the Mayoralty, which could be difficult for Labour mid-term?
So surely for the tip to pay off, he has to win Tooting, but Labour has to be out of government. That's not impossible, it happened in 2010. But obviously on top of that he'd have to win the selection and the election, again not impossible...
I love this post, genuinely. It's the sort that contributes intelligent debate to punting.
That having been said I expect a Conservative 40 seat outright majority and for Labour to win Tooting. I haven't time right now to go into the logic of that, but there is one and it's coherent. Part of the answer lies in the cataclysm awaiting the LibDems, part on Sadiq and Tooting itself.
@AudreyAnne - a genuine tip for you, I think I've wasted a fiver on it but if you believe in a Lib Dem cataclysm then sure the Tories are taking BATH.
William Hills go 6-1 top price and Ladbrokes are 1-7 Lib Dem (UKIP & Labour have no chance here) so mathematically it is OK (There is a 2% overround on top prices)
Don Foster is standing down here so there's no Lib Dem incumbency to worry about.
Personally I think I've wasted a fiver on it, but with your take on the Lib-Dem/Conservative battleground, it's a great bet.
Is there some stealth social engineering going on to begin with, that we should end up with a 60:40 female:male ratio? AIUI medicine is a high IQ profession, and women's IQ is the same on average, but bunched around the middle. So there are fewer female geniuses than male, fewer female idiots than male, and on average the same score.
This being so I'd expect broadly to see more men than women in the medical profession. What would temper this is if it were so small as a field that there were more suitable applicants than places.
There are more women then men at Cambridge University, for example, but there are only 3,000 a year let in and probably 15,000 with equivalent A-Level grades. Of those 15,000 you'd expect there to be more men than women, so it's plausible there could be 11,000 men and 4,000 women, of whom 1,000 and 2,000 end up there.
Of course A Levels are an imperfect example because they've been gerrymandered to make them easier for girls to pass.
After centuries of male dominance in the medical profession, I can't get too excited about it leaning marginally the other way.
BUt perhaps you should.
The problem with the entire debate over equality is that it uses apples and oranges to try and work out what "needs to be done". In reality, we probably achieved equality of opportunity some time in the late eighties or early nineties, however if you look at how this is being measured, it uses metrics based on today and not projections on how existing changes will play out over time
The best example of this is board room participation. Achieving a board room position depends on opportunity throughout one's working life, with an average age being in the 60s, therefore there is something like 40 years of working life to achieve this. A change made in the 1990s will not be reflected until the 2030s.
I was looking for that post sharing some misgivings about Sadiq, before I get jumped on for my response about Guido. FWIW I also do have some misgivings, and like that poster know some of his family.
Mind you, neither Ken Livingstone nor Boris Johnson are exactly squeaky clean Londoners have shown themselves to be a pretty forgiving lot, or prepared to turn a blind eye to some misdemeanours.
So currently Labour lead with Populus, ICM, Opinium, Ipsos Mori.
It's tied with YouGov, Ashcroft (although under previous methodology Lab have 1 pt lead), TNS-BRMB
And the Tories have to rely on a slender 1 pt lead with *ahem* Survation (UKIP at 23% - yeah right) and (fair enough) ComRes.
Yes but your list shows that most of the polls with Labour leads are the plder ones - ICM, Opinium and Mori. The recent position shows movement to the blues. Still if it keeps your hopes up.
Move to the BLues? Where? I see a decline in Labour share for sure, but the Blues are still flatlining I'm afraid.
I saw this urban myth being repeated yesterday and it's time to scotch it.
The last week's polling shows them on 32.6% compared to the previous 3 weeks of 31.7%. Small beer you may say, but an increase of 1% nonetheless. Indeed the profile of the last two weeks looks like this:
Conservative share: Past week: 32.6% Preceding week: 31.4%
An increase in the Conservative share of 1.2% in this last week. Sorry to replace your invented meme with fact.
Is there some stealth social engineering going on to begin with, that we should end up with a 60:40 female:male ratio? AIUI medicine is a high IQ profession, and women's IQ is the same on average, but bunched around the middle. So there are fewer female geniuses than male, fewer female idiots than male, and on average the same score.
This being so I'd expect broadly to see more men than women in the medical profession. What would temper this is if it were so small as a field that there were more suitable applicants than places.
There are more women then men at Cambridge University, for example, but there are only 3,000 a year let in and probably 15,000 with equivalent A-Level grades. Of those 15,000 you'd expect there to be more men than women, so it's plausible there could be 11,000 men and 4,000 women, of whom 1,000 and 2,000 end up there.
Of course A Levels are an imperfect example because they've been gerrymandered to make them easier for girls to pass.
After centuries of male dominance in the medical profession, I can't get too excited about it leaning marginally the other way.
I was more or less following that until we got to the bit about 'A' levels being gerrymandered to make them easier for girls to pass. It's a bit like having what you think is an intelligent and reasonable conversation with someone, who then suddenly blurts out 'I am the reincarnation of Napoleon'.
Very good!
I am not the reincarnation of Napoleon. But I am his 4-greats-granddaughter.
Also, why do people assume that women can only pass exams if they're gerry mandered.
Interesting report on the Today programme this morning about why GPs are so fed up.
Does anyone assume that? What I am suggesting is that you can alter the pass rate by altering the exam. If this is done to achieve an equal pass rate when there is good reason to expect an unequal one, then what you have is a gerrymandered result.
If you had an Olympic weightlifting contest with both female and male contenders in which the women won 50% of the time, it would reasonable to investigate whether it involved the lifting of any weights. If it did not then prima facie it would not be unreasonable to suspect it had been gerrymandered to achieve those 50% per sex results.
So currently Labour lead with Populus, ICM, Opinium, Ipsos Mori.
It's tied with YouGov, Ashcroft (although under previous methodology Lab have 1 pt lead), TNS-BRMB
And the Tories have to rely on a slender 1 pt lead with *ahem* Survation (UKIP at 23% - yeah right) and (fair enough) ComRes.
Yes but your list shows that most of the polls with Labour leads are the plder ones - ICM, Opinium and Mori. The recent position shows movement to the blues. Still if it keeps your hopes up.
On the NHS, Lord Darzai is wrong and most voters are staunchly anti privatisation.
Nope, most voters are simply pro 'not getting a bill for healthcare' i.e. free at the point of use. As long as that continues, I doubt they're really bothered who provides it.
It's interesting that university students are now picking much more employable subjects now they're putting their own money forward. That is, in turn, forcing universities to get more competitive about how good their courses are. Perhaps a small fee (£5 for a GP visit) for the NHS might make health consumers start to be more focused on what they are getting for their money. Because right now the standards of politeness, competency and administrative ease are often shockingly poor. Many receptionist staff seem to think of the patients as a nuisance to be either rushed through the system as quick as possible, or rejected, rather than the people paying their wages.
All evidence points to putting a fee on seeing primary care givers makes people put off cheap primary care medical checks which results in more people ending up in expensive secondary care.
Your evidence is? In France they have a charge and have better results in cancer detection & treatment than the NHS. Being free has not given us better detection rates. "However, the most up-to-date international comparisons show that England still has worse cancer survival rates than many countries..." "In England, the NHS and public health need to work together to diagnose more cancers at an earlier stage" .... "survival for many cancers is lower in England than Sweden, Finland, France, Germany and the Netherlands"
How anyone can draw the conclusion he is some kind of shining example of moderation with his extremist links and anti white racist policy ideas is beyond me
Zac Goldsmith or Karen Brady would be good choices from the tories or maybe as ukip/tory backed independents ?
Interesting report on the Today programme this morning about why GPs are so fed up.
Summary?
John Humphreys interviewed his own GP who was talking about the level of bureaucracy involved in everything, how much time it took and that was why she - like others - was thinking of leaving. From what I could gather the bureaucracy rather than the money was the issue. She didn't really come up with any answers as to what could be done so it was hard to tell whether this was unnecessary bureaucracy (providing meaningless statistics) or necessary stuff e.g. proper medical notes.
Btw Migration Watch named two seats as being most likely to be heavily affected by immigrant voters
Brent Central Brentford and Isleworth.
Which is reassuring as I'm on Labour in both these.
One of the reasons Labour are trying to be tough on immigration in ways that don't actually affect immigration levels is because it will swing the electorate in their favour. What the rest of the country needs to ask is whether places like Brent Central and Brentworth and Isleworth are places the country should aspire to be like.
You are entirely correct on what should happen, but cutting the tariff for elective orthopaedics or handing all the elective work to private sector providers will end up with emergency work failing.
One big problem is that emergency work over 2008 levels of activity is paid at 30% (I think) of tariff. You may have noticed there has been something of an increase in demand in the last few years and nothing has been even suggested to improve this situation.
The answer of course is blindingly obvious - there shouldn't be any arbitrary tariffs. There should be competitive tendering for a defined set of deliverables. That way we'd get genuine price transparency and it would be clear if, for example, A + E needed extra funding, and, if so, whether it was best to provide that funding or perhaps find a different and less expensive way of providing parts of the service.
Currently we have a somewhat boshed-up hybrid where we have an internal 'market' which is not a proper market at all, because (thanks to ideological obsession) providers are not allowed to compete on price. Of course if you want efficiency in providing mass-market services there is only one way to get it - encourage price competition. It works in every other comparable field of human endeavour.
I was looking for that post sharing some misgivings about Sadiq, before I get jumped on for my response about Guido. FWIW I also do have some misgivings, and like that poster know some of his family.
Mind you, neither Ken Livingstone nor Boris Johnson are exactly squeaky clean Londoners have shown themselves to be a pretty forgiving lot, or prepared to turn a blind eye to some misdemeanours.
There are misdemeanours and then there is abuse of public money and inviting extremists who believe in the beating of women and the killing of Jews and gays to City Hall. The latter is something I'm not prepared to forgive and I'm not frankly prepared to forgive the party which put such a person up as candidate for Mayor in a city which has suffered from and is at risk from terrorism with the same source.
Khan is one of the few Labour MPs who has accepted that Labour's record on civil liberties was not good. So that's a start. But quotas are a terrible idea, frankly. Never mind One-Nation-Labour. That's not even One-City-Labour.
Interesting report on the Today programme this morning about why GPs are so fed up.
Summary?
John Humphreys interviewed his own GP who was talking about the level of bureaucracy involved in everything, how much time it took and that was why she - like others - was thinking of leaving. From what I could gather the bureaucracy rather than the money was the issue. She didn't really come up with any answers as to what could be done so it was hard to tell whether this was unnecessary bureaucracy (providing meaningless statistics) or necessary stuff e.g. proper medical notes.
That's odd...BBC seems very uninterested in the fact A&E waiting times in England improved for the 3rd week running.
93% now, so still below target, but not quite the Armageddon that they were drumming up. However, in Wales and NI....well we don't like to mention those do we, and Welsh Ambulance service is worst in the country...again, not really news apparently.
But they will find another health angle...Yesterday it was their slightly dodgy stats about elderly care, well timed to go with Miliband's latest weaponizing strategy.
Interesting report on the Today programme this morning about why GPs are so fed up.
Summary?
John Humphreys interviewed his own GP who was talking about the level of bureaucracy involved in everything, how much time it took and that was why she - like others - was thinking of leaving. From what I could gather the bureaucracy rather than the money was the issue. She didn't really come up with any answers as to what could be done so it was hard to tell whether this was unnecessary bureaucracy (providing meaningless statistics) or necessary stuff e.g. proper medical notes.
Having seen some of this at close range, one key problem is the "office manager" that GPs appoint to sort out their systems and processes. They really should pay more for a professional rather than the promoted receptionists that most seem to have. A consequence is that the main GP becomes the office manager consuming much of their £100k/£150k p.a. time rather than having a £50k p.a. person sort it all out for them.
Interesting report on the Today programme this morning about why GPs are so fed up.
Summary?
John Humphreys interviewed his own GP who was talking about the level of bureaucracy involved in everything, how much time it took and that was why she - like others - was thinking of leaving. From what I could gather the bureaucracy rather than the money was the issue. She didn't really come up with any answers as to what could be done so it was hard to tell whether this was unnecessary bureaucracy (providing meaningless statistics) or necessary stuff e.g. proper medical notes.
Having seen some of this at close range, one key problem is the "office manager" that GPs appoint to sort out their systems and processes. They really should pay more for a professional rather than the promoted receptionists that most seem to have. A consequence is that the main GP becomes the office manager consuming much of their £100k/£150k p.a. time rather than having a £50k p.a. person sort it all out for them.
Yes - Quite... Seems to me they'd rather take more cash and employ 1 receptionist on £10/hr rather than pay a bit more or perhaps hire someone else to do paperwork. There are plenty of people that could competently do the paperwork for far less than £50k I'd vouch too.
After Ken Livingstone, a certain religous/ethnic group in London must wonder about their support for Labour if this chap is chosen.
I don't think Labour care about their votes any more. Not enough of them.
If you adopt community politics i.e. by picking off groups here and there by focusing only one fixed characteristic, then those groups who are small in number will get ignored. This is the style of politics which people like Livingstone pioneered and which Labour are still using. Quotas are a classic example of the sort of policy which arises from this approach.
Great for those who might benefit. The rest of us have had a gigantic 2-fingers waved in our faces.
Interesting report on the Today programme this morning about why GPs are so fed up.
Summary?
John Humphreys interviewed his own GP who was talking about the level of bureaucracy involved in everything, how much time it took and that was why she - like others - was thinking of leaving. From what I could gather the bureaucracy rather than the money was the issue. She didn't really come up with any answers as to what could be done so it was hard to tell whether this was unnecessary bureaucracy (providing meaningless statistics) or necessary stuff e.g. proper medical notes.
Having seen some of this at close range, one key problem is the "office manager" that GPs appoint to sort out their systems and processes. They really should pay more for a professional rather than the promoted receptionists that most seem to have. A consequence is that the main GP becomes the office manager consuming much of their £100k/£150k p.a. time rather than having a £50k p.a. person sort it all out for them.
That's generous, and in the light of the Australian rates I posted below, my brother in law is a rural GP, this year he made less than £50k, if he moved to Australia he would make almost £200k, fortunately his kids are at school here and his family are happy here so he won't, but other younger, less attached doctor will be strongly considering it.
@patrickwintour: New Labour general election twitter feed keen to highlight it will operate Mon to Friday 08.00-15.00, closed weekends. Real jobsworths.
Interesting report on the Today programme this morning about why GPs are so fed up.
Summary?
John Humphreys interviewed his own GP who was talking about the level of bureaucracy involved in everything, how much time it took and that was why she - like others - was thinking of leaving. From what I could gather the bureaucracy rather than the money was the issue. She didn't really come up with any answers as to what could be done so it was hard to tell whether this was unnecessary bureaucracy (providing meaningless statistics) or necessary stuff e.g. proper medical notes.
Far too many GP surgeries are stuck in some sort of technology time-warp.
Things like, no internet booking (something they can do something about) and computer systems that aren't joined up with the rest of the NHS (well we all know about why this is).
No private company would run this way and be able to survive in today's world. Amazon manage to process huge amounts of data automatically and even my local council gym has online booking, joined up membership / info system, etc.
Sure health is more complex, but all surgeries should have stuff like organizing bookings be automated and online. Current government set a target for this, but was very wishy washy, and it will be missed by miles.
My other half's mum was a GP - had to retire due to ill health though ... girlfriend was amazed when I showed her how much GPs are on now - she retired shortly before the New Labour bonanza deal so missed out on a fair chunk of change.
Come the 8th May Ed Miliband will be Prime Minister.
Albeit at the head of a shaky coalition.
That really does sound like a recipe for disaster.
The key for Labour will be to find the 323 needed to pass a budget. Using Sporting Index mid points Lab + LD + SDLP would be 10 short. There will be enough left leaning MPs in the house of commons next time round to pass most of Labour's other legislation.
Comments
None of the projections support this. Pretty much every reasonable projection says that Labour + SNP + Plaid > 323 and Labour + LibDem < 323 (quite well under).
There's only two possible governments under these circumstances Labour minority backed by SNP/PLaid or Grand Coalition.
Unless they are a front for some colonels looking for a pretext, I suppose.
PfP is a dear friend with whom I have sparred for many years on this Site, Audrey. He and I are known to occupy different points on the political compass but we share a liking for good profitable bet, and that has caused us to be allies more often than not.
He loves to catch people out for using the wrong name. You are merely the latest in a long line to be found guilty, and no doubt fined a notional one pound. It makes me smile too.
No offence caused, none taken, but do take more care in future. You may get away with naming the wrong candidate for Hampstead, but you will never, ever be allowed to confuse your PfPs with your PtPs.
Warm regards
PtP
It's interesting that university students are now picking much more employable subjects now they're putting their own money forward.
I know you always have stats to hand, so I'd be genuinely interested in any evidence you have to support that assertion.
Bombardments with free subscriptions to porn sites should do the trick...
Anyone remember that C4 series from the 80s? A Labour government in desperate straights getting a Soviet bailout? Can't remember the name of it.
But on second thoughts, I'm not sure they'd get away with that with the Greek public, after promising them all these things. I guess what's happening is that Syriza want to exit the Euro, but need to get the public pissed off enough with Germany that they will support it.
Suppose Lab-SNP have a majority, and SNP provide confidence to PM Miliband. At some point they find a pretext [or a genuine reason] to vote against the Westminster government, precipitating a vote of confidence that brings down the Miliband Ministry. What happens next?
Well it's up to the new leader of the Conservatives to try and form a government, but if we assume that the SNP will vote against such a government, and that Labour will also not join them in a grand coalition, or abstain in a vote of confidence, then they also fail to win a vote of confidence and we have a general election.
So in that scenario the timing of a second election would be almost entirely at the discretion of Alex Salmond, as the choice for Labour would be to face an election at that time, or face an election later after propping up the Tories for a while.
The disparity between male and female IQ distributions is well known, and it applies to quite a few other things too I believe, such as height and shoe size. But a going-in objective of qualification designers in recent years has been that there should be no male / female distinctions in results. The way to achieve this would thus be to remove the role of intelligence from the syllabus, for example by continuous assessment of work completed under supervision rather than of what you are capable of coming up with in an exam.
There must also always have been more male Fs and Us than female, but since these are all just lumped together as fails, it was probably less conspicuous.
The last week's polling shows them on 32.6% compared to the previous 3 weeks of 31.7%. Small beer you may say, but an increase of 1% nonetheless. Indeed the profile of the last two weeks looks like this:
Conservative share:
Past week: 32.6%
Preceding week: 31.4%
An increase in the Conservative share of 1.2% in this last week. Sorry to replace your invented meme with fact.
(Polling included up to last night http://ukpollingreport.co.uk/voting-intention-2)
Its the troika who are bonkers for even bothering to talk to them. It's giving them a credibility they absolutely do not deserve (as well as allowed leftists elsewhere to leverage up what is going on)
http://www.efxnews.com/story/20835/first-reaction-german-elections-more-losers-winners-danske
"The last time SPD joined a grand coalition with Merkel in 2005-9, their popularity plummeted to the lowest level in the post-war era and many in SPD fear it could happen again."
POEWAS.
Watching the polls along the way
Talkin' it over, just the few of us
Workin' together day to day, together
Pedantically, decimate = reduce by a tenth, not to a tenth!
Haha!!!! That's floored me!
2. If you look at the last 18 months or so you can see that the Tory vote share fluctuates around a bit, but has basically gone nowhere, while the Labour vote has dropped unevenly.
You need much stronger evidence than one week of apples to prove a change in that pattern.
3. The recent change in the lead, however, is more robust, and a quick glance at the past opinion polls shows that this is the Conservative's best week in the polling for three years, when they were benefiting from the Vetogasm.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/0/formula1/31056500
Incidentally, due to lack of sponsorship* the McLaren will be all black at the first test.
*Or possibly due to sponsorship by ninjas. Or Batman.
Brent Central
Brentford and Isleworth.
Which is reassuring as I'm on Labour in both these.
Now I don't know whether this amounts to anything or not but this is the sort of thing that could cause problems in the scrutiny of a campaign - remember how damaged Livingstone was when his tax arrangements came out.
Personally I prefer Tessa Jowell.
OK any Grand Coalition sounds unlikely, but it happens in Germany and it will all depend on the numbers.
It's fortunate for Norway and Sweden that Vlad's decided on a southern opening strategy
Zac Goldsmith or Karen Brady would be good choices from the tories or maybe as ukip/tory backed independents ?
One big problem is that emergency work over 2008 levels of activity is paid at 30% (I think) of tariff. You may have noticed there has been something of an increase in demand in the last few years and nothing has been even suggested to improve this situation.
I was more or less following that until we got to the bit about 'A' levels being gerrymandered to make them easier for girls to pass. It's a bit like having what you think is an intelligent and reasonable conversation with someone, who then suddenly blurts out 'I am the reincarnation of Napoleon'.
Very good!
http://order-order.com/2010/10/08/5-things-you-should-know-about-the-shadow-justice-secretary/
Very good!
I am not the reincarnation of Napoleon. But I am his 4-greats-granddaughter.
Also, why do people assume that women can only pass exams if they're gerry mandered.
Interesting report on the Today programme this morning about why GPs are so fed up.
Medicine is less quantitative, more women study biology than physics, and is also a caring profession hence more women.
Perhaps the long payback time for such an expensive qualification is also a turn off for a potential future sole earner.
On some matters Sadiq is a good deal less extremist and anti-libertarian than some on here.
How many of you kippers support gay marriage?
The problem with the entire debate over equality is that it uses apples and oranges to try and work out what "needs to be done". In reality, we probably achieved equality of opportunity some time in the late eighties or early nineties, however if you look at how this is being measured, it uses metrics based on today and not projections on how existing changes will play out over time
The best example of this is board room participation. Achieving a board room position depends on opportunity throughout one's working life, with an average age being in the 60s, therefore there is something like 40 years of working life to achieve this. A change made in the 1990s will not be reflected until the 2030s.
Mind you, neither Ken Livingstone nor Boris Johnson are exactly squeaky clean
Trend is your friend punters get taken to bookies hospitality suites
I am not the reincarnation of Napoleon. But I am his 4-greats-granddaughter.
Also, why do people assume that women can only pass exams if they're gerry mandered.
Interesting report on the Today programme this morning about why GPs are so fed up.
Does anyone assume that? What I am suggesting is that you can alter the pass rate by altering the exam. If this is done to achieve an equal pass rate when there is good reason to expect an unequal one, then what you have is a gerrymandered result.
If you had an Olympic weightlifting contest with both female and male contenders in which the women won 50% of the time, it would reasonable to investigate whether it involved the lifting of any weights. If it did not then prima facie it would not be unreasonable to suspect it had been gerrymandered to achieve those 50% per sex results.
"However, the most up-to-date international comparisons show that England still has worse cancer survival rates than many countries..."
"In England, the NHS and public health need to work together to diagnose more cancers at an earlier stage" .... "survival for many cancers is lower in England than Sweden, Finland, France, Germany and the Netherlands"
http://www.google.co.uk/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=2&cad=rja&uact=8&ved=0CCkQFjAB&url=http://www.kingsfund.org.uk/sites/files/kf/How-to-improve-cancer-survival-Explaining-England-poor-rates-Kings-Fund-June-2011.pdf&ei=bXLLVPG5MMKsPanxgfgC&usg=AFQjCNFmn2mHg-6M9TefFPydvX33wUSpkQ&sig2=XFAG0hrXPWwqyvHR-zjlXA&bvm=bv.84607526,d.ZWU
Currently we have a somewhat boshed-up hybrid where we have an internal 'market' which is not a proper market at all, because (thanks to ideological obsession) providers are not allowed to compete on price. Of course if you want efficiency in providing mass-market services there is only one way to get it - encourage price competition. It works in every other comparable field of human endeavour.
Khan is one of the few Labour MPs who has accepted that Labour's record on civil liberties was not good. So that's a start. But quotas are a terrible idea, frankly. Never mind One-Nation-Labour. That's not even One-City-Labour.
http://www.gpjobsinaustralia.co.uk/gp-jobs-australia/
93% now, so still below target, but not quite the Armageddon that they were drumming up. However, in Wales and NI....well we don't like to mention those do we, and Welsh Ambulance service is worst in the country...again, not really news apparently.
But they will find another health angle...Yesterday it was their slightly dodgy stats about elderly care, well timed to go with Miliband's latest weaponizing strategy.
If you adopt community politics i.e. by picking off groups here and there by focusing only one fixed characteristic, then those groups who are small in number will get ignored. This is the style of politics which people like Livingstone pioneered and which Labour are still using. Quotas are a classic example of the sort of policy which arises from this approach.
Great for those who might benefit. The rest of us have had a gigantic 2-fingers waved in our faces.
Things like, no internet booking (something they can do something about) and computer systems that aren't joined up with the rest of the NHS (well we all know about why this is).
No private company would run this way and be able to survive in today's world. Amazon manage to process huge amounts of data automatically and even my local council gym has online booking, joined up membership / info system, etc.
Sure health is more complex, but all surgeries should have stuff like organizing bookings be automated and online. Current government set a target for this, but was very wishy washy, and it will be missed by miles.
I want to see whether changing the status quo of itself makes an impact.