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politicalbetting.com » Blog Archive » David Herdson looks at what might shift the polls in the 53
politicalbetting.com » Blog Archive » David Herdson looks at what might shift the polls in the 53 days that remain
Polls are snapshots, not predictions. It’s a common and accurate assertion and is one part in the explanation as to why the betting markets don’t match up with current polling.
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Whatever it is, its a bit odd. .
http://putler.5riday.co
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/generalelection/new-rift-emerges-between-miliband-and-balls-10107519.html
Not least, its different from Balls '5 Priorities'
And is a pile of verbless mush compared to Blair's specific actionable 1997 pledges....
3 hours 3 minutes 3 seconds
Interesting thread Mr Herdson. – A plausible list TBH, but not a black swan amongst them.
Beware pledge cards.
A little unfair to blame him for Brown's mess.
There is little between the 3 parties on this, and even the Greens agreed with much of the direction of travel. The direction of travel with the integration of Health and Social Care via the Better Care Together Fund under Jeremy Hunt is pretty much what Labour is proposing and is largely the work of Norman Lamb. Liz Kendall spoke particularly well, as did Norman Lamb. I cannot see how Miliband can "weaponise" the NHS when there is such agreement. The differences were fairly marginal discussions round the edges.
While the A/E target is still being breached, the figures are better than January. Trusts are in financial defecit but these are being allowed by the Treasury so are not going to be a doorstep issue. The system is creaking a bit under the strain, but doesn't look like shaping up to be a core campaigning issue. I think Eds Weapon has fizzled out.
The bit on the media is spot on. Ed really should just go for Murdoch's jugular and pledge to cap the cost of sky. It'd be wildly popular amongst normal people. The top rated comment on this thread, linked to on my facebook feed, sums up the popular mood out there;
"I cancelled Sky last July after 25 years of unbroken loyalty - I threatened I'd leave if they didn't offer me a much better deal (like many people get) and, lo and behold, they said they could knock £10 off. Not much of a saving as I was already paying £94 a month and they'd sent me a letter saying they were going to increase it by another £5 or so"
C'mon Ed. Figure out a vaguely workable policy & send this out by text on May 6th;
"The success of the premier league shouldn't mean that loyal local supporters are priced out of watching their team. Vote labour tomorrow and, from next season it will cost no more than £20 a month to watch live PL football on TV."
Labour values, init.
5 pledges on what they failed to do last time and when challenged last time on this accused the opponents of every type of "....ism" going.
Cynical posturing to say the least andLabour should be completely and utterly ashamed of themselves. They won't be of course which is why they deserve to be rejected entirely by the electorate.
Cap the subscriptions and many PL clubs would go to the wall financially. I am not convinced that it is a vote winner.
I would like to see cheaper ticket prices rather than cheaper Sky Subs, but that is not really the business of the government. Even so my Season ticket at Leicester City works out at £25 per game. Excellent value compared to your Sky.
Most of us who worked at the interface between Health and Social Care were frustrated at the different agendas and funding of the various bodies. Sometimes liason was good; sometimes it wasn’t.
http://www.bbc.com/news/health-23258962
£30bn is the equivalent of a 5% rise in the base rate of income tax, which would be the ultimate vote loser even if the electorate believe all the money would go to the NHS, which they won't.
Ultimately, things are only going to change when people stop subscribing. And unfortunately that's only likely to happen the next time we fall into a deep recession.
They all agreed funding was a problem; none came up with a solution. The Green rep wanted to put up income tax like you suggested.
They all fairly openly put funding into "the too difficult box". Not an adequate response but it does not make it a weapon.
You can tell 'em they're crazy to pay for sky just to watch man city (or whoever) and should support Leicester and buy a £25 per game season ticket instead - I mean, you can try that argument - but I'm guessing it won't be very effective.
Why not just go the whole hog and nationalise football. Then no one would have to pay!
Ed nods off in St Paul's Afghanistan commemoration
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2994208/As-peek-boo-Ed-nods-St-Paul-s-Afghanistan-commemoration-service-two-predecessors-sneak-door-avoid-angry-relatives-fallen.html
BTs is £7.50, sure there are less channels but there are still loads because they've integrated the 20 premium channels like UK Gold and discovery with Freeview on the same box. Add in the free sport and for anyone not really into sport it is a no brainer.
www.youtube.com/watch?v=MetBQSkDUoA
Tories in the 20s again.
Not the performance of a Party which is going to be in government after 7th May.
I suppose the most obvious one is the budget. This gets such large scale coverage that even the general public notice. Osborne has a lot to boast about and he will but what will really matter is if he can set the agenda in a way that Labour finds uncomfortable going forward.
Given UK plc is still very much on its uppers this is a lot more challenging but the more interesting and radical Osborne is the more of these 53 days the media is going to spend talking about the economy and the happier the Tories will be. On the other hand if he overdoes it and some policy falls apart in his hands much of the Tory advantage on economic competence might be lost with devastating consequences.
Other than the budget what else might change things? Well, I agree that if a debate of the parties minus Cameron takes place that is going to be a very tricky moment for him. Rather than cowardice I would tend to accuse Cameron of almost reckless bravery in taking on the vested interests of the media in that way. Depending on how this plays out the Tories could take a major hit.
None of us are impartial but even trying my very best I cannot see more of Miliband on the media being good for Labour. There is a risk of a series of "Gaffs" , contrived or otherwise. Most of these will just make some right wingers and certain parts of the media feel warm inside but it is possible that one or more might get traction. I don't think 2 kitchens Ed is the one but it is a hint of the potential.
Is there anything the Lib Dems can do (other than switching out the lights in the HQ)? Anything at all? The debates were their best chance to get back in the game and if they either don't happen or happen in a diminished form they seem to me to be in terrible trouble. I don't think there is any chance of their idea of Nick taking Dave's place to defend the government's record will fly at all. Normally, at elections where they get more equal coverage their vote recovers significantly. I struggle to think of an event that is going to allow that this time.
If fans want to watch Galacticos on millions of pounds per year then they have to pay for it. If they want to watch decent football played with passion then they would be much better off supporting clubs further down the pecking order.
I have little interest in highly paid international mercenaries playing in the Champions League. I support Leicester City in the PL, but enjoyed the recent season in League 1 as much or more than this season. There was some really good football played.
Shan't spoilt the qualifying for anyone who's waiting to watch the highlights. Some pretty interesting results, and hopefully some potential for race bets [haven't checked the markets yet, it'll be hours before they get going].
For the race: Bottas reportedly has a slightly bad back. Doubt it'll stop him racing but may slightly compromise his performance.
I strongly believe that Scotland, and the dramatic fall of the LibDems. has changed this "conventional wisdom".
Certainly my own model suggests this and it looks like others do to. A 1% CON lead (if SNP take 35-40 seats; LD and Green get 6-9% each and UKIP around 14-16%) should be enough to see CON edge ahead on seats.
I have been to the odd Tigers game, but cannot summon much enthusiasm for Rugby.
Supporting Leicester City is a triumph of hope over experience, but there is much more to talk about in a team that needs improving.
Hull at home today. We need a completely implausible string of victories to avoid relegation, but hope springs eternal.
(Sorry. I can't ever see a cheap shot without taking it...)
Baxter the current baxter figures but change Tory and Labour to their 2010 levels and you get a Tory majority of 4 (I had to knock the greens down by 1% for it to work)
Scotland leaves Labour a mountain to climb in terms of gains in England and Wales. I think the collapse of the LDs is more neutral as seats will go to both Labour and Tory (as well as SNP)
In any case the reason why the terrorist attack in Spain had such a large effect on the impending election was because the government tried to take political advantage of it by blaming the basque separists in the immediate aftermath.
http://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/2015/03/13/ed-miliband-kitchen-vine_n_6862288.html
PS. The comments after are well worth reading
FWIW I think both UKIP and the Greens will underperform where it matters (in marginals). We're recanvassing people who were firm for one of them 6-12 months ago (unless they were previously Tory): many are now softening, and I expect the Tories are finding the same. I wouldn't be too surprised if the two main parties between them hit 70% in England, though I do think turnout will be slightly down: some of the people who'd been planning to vote for one of these as "none of the above" parties have decided that they're rubbish too.
The other side of the coin is that people would have to reflect on Miliband in charge in a crisis. The idea of Miliband having to say go to Moscow to negotiate with a Putin who has turned off the gas taps to Europe just gives me the screaming ab-dabs...
One model might be to say that seats in the north might swing in a different direction or to a different extent due to regional politics.
Equally one might expect different sorts of swing between say rural seats, industrial seats, inner city seats etc.
I have been tinkering with an idea for a model which is based around movement being more likely in seats in which a party is already present, rather than taking place uniformly, on the basis that people leaning toward a party will be more likely to encounter fellow travellers and become politically engaged. Particularly in the case of say the kippers, if they do well in this election I am expecting them to put on more votes where they were strongest in 2010, rather than uniformly across the country. On the same basis when parties are fading they are more likely to lose support where they already don't have much because the social aspect of politics breaks down as there are less people to engage with.
Can’t see a terrorist event making that miuch difference, even if on the scale of 7/7 in the UK.
Unless you intend cutting off everyone's phone and broadband.
Example: TSE is considering voting LD in Sheffield Hallam, but a Tory going Yellow in the West country would be a very strange beast.
I think that Labour will pick up LD votes best where the LDs were in third place last time. Places like Broxtowe. I do not think that they will pick up LD votes in rural areas or the celtic fringes.
I expect UKIP will do best in safe blue seats where there is no risk of letting in Labour, mostly in the South East and Southwest. Suzanne Evans was on AQ last night trying to fight Tory welfare reforms; not very plausible but it seems she is responsible for the manifesto. I cannot see it making sense.
Neither have major Royal events.
And I think the Greek/German Euro dispute is priced in.
That said, there's only so much we can say about a Black Swan we don't know about. If it's a purely external thing, such as a terrorist attack, we can guess that it'll reinforce perceptions about the various parties' policies and the various leaders' characters in handling their response. If it's a BS within the system - someone punches a voter, admits an affair, is discovered printing fivers, or whatever - then it depends so much on who, what and to an extent when, that it's almost impossible to factor in to predictions.
Definitions
noun
(British, old-fashioned) a case of extreme anxiety ⇒ "I had a case of the screaming abdabs"
15 minutes 15 seconds
May have to use that in some writing.
If Labour had done their homework and put together some alternative plan that was costed and vaguely credible any damage would be modest but since it is increasingly obvious that Balls and Miliband are at best talking past each other and at worst not talking at all I do not think they are in a position to deal with this.
Actually another potential black swan is Ed Balls saying I can't put up with this anymore. I suspect it is only the risk to his wife's chances that has stopped him from doing so already.
Its worth remembering that Tsipras and Varoufakis both personally favour default and the Drachma, but had to moderate their positions to get elected by a pro-EU electorate.
Overall I think the polls are about right for Scotland.
http://www.ifop.com/media/poll/2960-1-study_file.pdf
Page 3 is a useful mathematical note, showing the margin of error for different sample sizes and levels of support (the closer to 50% your vote, the bigger the margin of error). For instance, with a sample of 1000, the margin of error for a party with 5% support (or 95%) is 14%, but for a party with 30% it's 2.8%. Sample size makes relatively little difference until it drops under 500.
This doesn't mean that if your true vote is 30%, it's just as likely to be polled at 27.2% or 32.8% - polls will tend to cluster around the real value with some outliers. But it means that it's very likely (95% likely) that a poll outside that range means your real rating is NOT 30%. If you take 20 polls, then of course one will be outside the 95% certainty range, but if you get two polls showing you outside the range, it probably means something.
The breaking news is that WIND is reporting to the JNN the contents of the latest ARSE with added APLOMB 2015 General Election and "JackW Dozen" Projections. (Changes From 10th March Projection) :
Con 312 (-2) .. Lab 250 (+2) .. LibDem 31 (+1) .. SNP 32 .. PC 2 .. NI 18 .. UKIP 2 (-1) .. Respect 1 .. Green 1 .. Ind 0 .. Speaker 1
Conservatives 16 seats short of a majority
......................................................................................
"JackW Dozen" - 13 seats that will shape the General Election result :
Bury North - Con Hold
Pudsey - Likely Con Hold
Broxtowe - TCTC
Warwickshire North - TCTC
Cambridge - LibDem Hold
Ipswich - Con Hold
Watford - Likely LibDem Gain
Croydon Central - Con Hold
Enfield North - TCTC
Cornwall North - TCTC
Great Yarmouth - Con Hold
Vale of Glamorgan - Con Hold
Ochil and South Perthshire - SNP Gain
Changes From 10 Mar - No Changes
TCTC - Too Close To Call - Less than 500 votes
Likely Hold/Gain - 500 - 2500 votes
Gain/Hold - Over 2500
.......................................................................................
ARSE is sponsored by Auchentennach Fine Pies (Est 1745)
WIND - Whimsical Independent News Division
JNN - Jacobite News Network
ARSE - Anonymous Random Selection of Electors
APLOMB - Auchentennach Pies Leading Outsales Mainland Britain
The main reason that Labour can get a lead in seats without a lead in votes is because they win their safe seats with much smaller turnouts than the Tories do in their safe seats. There are other factors, such as the size of the constituencies themselves, the size of their vote in seats where they're not in contention etc.
Little of that will be changed by a massive Lab-SNP swing. That would take away 30-40 Labour MPs from Scotland but would also take away a part of Labour's vote, while not affecting the Scottish Tory vote or MP total (or only marginally). It's true that Labour's vote in Scotland was distributed extremely efficiently while the Tories' was (and still is) distributed horribly inefficiently, so there would be some reduction in the overall vote lead the Tories would need for MP equality or an overall majority but not by much for the simple reason that Labour's vote would still be slightly more efficient in Scotland and the aforementioned factors in England and Wales would still apply.
The main fly in the ointment re the votes/seats equation is the extent to which UKIP will eat into vote shares in respective Con and Lab safe seats. If there's a substantial and disproportionate impact, that could upset the model. However, I'm not sure there is. Firstly, UKIP is taking votes from both Lab and Con (and others) in their own backyards but also - and equally importantly - they're also taking votes from those two parties in each other's back yards i.e. they're winning Tory votes in Labour heartlands and vice versa, though not equally. Even so, I don't think the net effect of the growth in UKIP and Green votes is something that substantially impacts on modelling based on the net Con-Lab swing, providing that model is sufficiently nuanced to take into account regional (and sectoral) variation.
It is slightly counter intuitive to suggest that Lib Dem prospects have improved in the last few days. If anything they seem to have got slightly worse and with less time to get better.
I also fear that you are anything up to 10 short on the SNP. Labour are simply not recovering up here.
Not surprising, you often find that people who throw accusations of racism around are doing it to hide their own prejudices.
I'd expect a steady-as-she-goes Budget with a few low-cost headline-grabbers, possibly similar to last year's one on pensions. There simply isn't the money for a giveaway which would in any case undercut the Tory reputation on competence while simultaneously giving the message that 'everything's fixed' so it's safe to let Labour back (and hence reinforcing Labour's message that future cuts must therefore be ideological).
Osborne could have cut harder, but he couldn't have cut harder and got re-elected. People are crying about the non-existent cuts as it is, one suspects in many cases more on the basis of media hysteria about cuts, and Labour scare stories about cuts than personal experience.
In the north, in Wales, in Scotland the Conservative Party doesn't seem to get the 'not Labour' vote. SNP get it in Scotland, UKIP could get it in the North and Wales.