There are quite alot of us bettors that want Labour dead, buried and chucked in an iron casket box in the Clyde never to be seen or heard of again up in Scotland.
Hang on, not so fast. Of course we want them to be wiped out in May - nothing personal, you understand, but business is business. But where would the betting interest in Scottish elections be in in the future if they don't make some kind of revival after May?
Tories can breathe now that the 29% looks like an outlier.
I think most people realised that at the time not that it stopped some having a bit of a panic. This poll fits well in with the others over the weekend - Conservative and Labour trading in the range 33-35 with UKIP back to around 15 (the 18 on Friday's poll was the other side of the outlier).
ICM is now awaited with interest - showed a 4-point CON lead last month though I don't think the 36% number for the Conservatives has been equalled let alone surpassed since.
First, Grant Shapps a throwback to the Tory 1980's loadsamoney Harry Enfield if ever there was one. Could the Tories not have found a woman or an safe pair of hands for this role, instead of someone as grating as Shapps with his ridiculous name? Reality TV beckons for him.
Second, the betting markets. The liquidity on the most seats market on betfair is quite astonishing- people are putting on serious cash for the Tories. Long gone are the Betfair days where I set off a new thread on here on the London Mayoral market after I popped a tenner on Boris and singlehandedly set his odds plummeting. Mike came out with a thread speculating on a new spectacular poll.
Well they did have a woman: Baroness Warsi. And she wasn't a huge success. And has now, apparently, reinvented herself as an Islamist sympathiser, which is pathetic given that she seemed when she first started out to be willing to speak truth to power to her community.
The "Uncle Tom" charge from the left has worked on Warsi. When the criticism of Muslims comes from White people - racism, when it comes from Muslims - Uncle Tom. That is the default setting.
@ Max U - I'm pretty certain that that any coalition, whether or not it is a coalition of parties which jointly command a majority, would be settled as one of the 'coalition' options.
1) It is easy to find individual seats, though swings and roundabouts mean it is the overall number of seats it aims for.
2) It still allows for different drifts away from LD in seats they hold, but now allows different drifts to both UKIP and Green in CON/LAB marginals.
3) While it still relies on a whole matrix of votes moving from one party to another in proportion to the votes they received in 2010, *IT IS ALSO POSSIBLE TO INPUT NATIONAL VOTE SHARES TO GET A PREDICTION*. It does this by taking a “Base Case” and then looking at shifts from this in an intelligent way. For example, I currently use a Base Case which says UKIP gains 20% of CON 2010 voters and 7% of LAB 2010 voters in non-marginal seats ; 12% of CON and 4% of LAB in marginals, plus 9% of LD 2010 voters in seats not currently held by LD; 7% in seats with LD incumbents. Overall this gives a UKIP share of 15%. If we now put in a UKIP share of 12%, it scales all of these flows down by 20%.
4) You can still look at the matrix this produces and see if it is reasonable.
5) It is possible to reset the Base Case if there is a fundamental shift in behaviour or for different assumptions.
6) It accounts for Scotland separately – which is very sensitive to SNP share, and then allocates “whatever is left” of the national vote shares into England and Wales. You put in assumptions for Scotland and a PC share in Wales only.
By law, the broadcast news media has to be non-partisan.
In once heard a rumor they had appointed a former Tory student leader as Political Editor. Can't be true...
Someone told me that David Cameron, George Osborne and Boris Johnson have all poached senior members of the BBC news team to work on their staffs. But that just can't be true.
SO will always say the BBC is non-partisan, non-bias, gets things about right, no matter how many BBC employees actually come out and say themselves that the BBC have a problem with bias. It isn't a Labour vs Tory bias, it is a liberal left metro elite worldview bubble view bias.
I have always said that the BBC clearly has a metropolitan, liberal bias - as do all three major political parties in this country. What I will not concede, as I see absolutely no evidence for it, is that the BBC pursues a partisan pro-Labour, anti-Tory agenda.
But of course that isn't true. The BBC world view is much closer to Labour's, especially with their journey leftward, with the anti-business, rich bashing, pro-immigration, pro-EU. So it is bias by the fact they just agree with a lot more of Labour's policies and instinctively think the Tories are overwhelmingly wrong.
What is interesting, the Telegraph sting on Lib Dem's, BBC didn't run at all. It was fairly small beans, and Telegraph spin that he had anything to do with Alexander was poor, but the fact remains they had a guy in charge of funding raising advising people to make donations in a dodgy way. If the Tories had done that, BBC 100% would have run big with that, as they are with Shapps.
First, Grant Shapps a throwback to the Tory 1980's loadsamoney Harry Enfield if ever there was one. Could the Tories not have found a woman or an safe pair of hands for this role, instead of someone as grating as Shapps with his ridiculous name?
Hmm, you do know he's Jewish? Would you refer to his "ridiculous name" if he was called Singh or Hussein?
Who would have imagined that twelve months ago?</p>
There are quite alot of us bettors that want Labour dead, buried and chucked in an iron casket box in the Clyde never to be seen or heard of again up in Scotland.
First, Grant Shapps a throwback to the Tory 1980's loadsamoney Harry Enfield if ever there was one. Could the Tories not have found a woman or an safe pair of hands for this role, instead of someone as grating as Shapps with his ridiculous name?
Hmm, you do know he's Jewish? Would you refer to his "ridiculous name" if he was called Singh or Hussein?
SO will always say the BBC is non-partisan, non-bias, gets things about right, no matter how many BBC employees actually come out and say themselves that the BBC have a problem with bias. It isn't a Labour vs Tory bias, it is a liberal left metro elite worldview bubble view bias.
I have always said that the BBC clearly has a metropolitan, liberal bias - as do all three major political parties in this country. What I will not concede, as I see absolutely no evidence for it, is that the BBC pursues a partisan pro-Labour, anti-Tory agenda.
But of course that isn't true. The BBC world view is much closer to Labour's, especially with their journey leftward, with the anti-business, rich bashing, pro-immigration, pro-EU.
What is interesting, the Telegraph stink on Lib Dem's, BBC didn't run at all. It was fairly small beans, and Telegraph spin that he had anything to do with Alexander was poor, but the fact remains they had a guy in charge of funding raising advising people to make donations in a dodgy way. If the Tories had done that, BBC 100% would have run big with that, as they are with Shapps.
Of course, the BBC's many critics on the left would say that it panders to the Tories, Euro-sceptics, climate change deniers, the super-rich and those who oppose immigration. And they would produce what they consider to be strong evidence to back up their claims:
SO will always say the BBC is non-partisan, non-bias, gets things about right, no matter how many BBC employees actually come out and say themselves that the BBC have a problem with bias. It isn't a Labour vs Tory bias, it is a liberal left metro elite worldview bubble view bias.
I have always said that the BBC clearly has a metropolitan, liberal bias - as do all three major political parties in this country. What I will not concede, as I see absolutely no evidence for it, is that the BBC pursues a partisan pro-Labour, anti-Tory agenda.
Cognitive dissonance?
Perhaps not, but SO can you really believe that on the one hand the Beeb are indeed institutionally biased, and that on the other it has absolutely no impact on the way they report politics (and the news in general)?
I'm not saying that I think the beeb are particularly biased to Labour, but they most certainly are much more likely to show favourable coverage/opinion with "liberal" stories and people.
That this disproportionally hits the Tories should not come as a surprise.
I'm not claiming a well-documented historical genocide didn't occur. I disagree with some people about a highly contentious and utterly unproven theory. It's an ugly term, and unworthy of you.
Well they did have a woman: Baroness Warsi. And she wasn't a huge success. And has now, apparently, reinvented herself as an Islamist sympathiser, which is pathetic given that she seemed when she first started out to be willing to speak truth to power to her community.
What exactly has she done or said that marks her out as an Islamist sympathiser? The politics of the Middle East are sometimes more complex than Israel good Arabs bad particularly for those who have connections with the area as does Baroness Warsi
Be nice to the Kippers today, Coburn's apologised for his vile smear, after some of the Kippers on here defended him and praised him.
Did they?
Are you on UKIP in Basildon South btw?
Yes they did and yes I am.
Who defended and praised him?
And what made you back UKIP in this seat?
I'll let you guess who wrote this
"I notice that muslims seem to be well entrenched in Scotland. I don't trust any of them, and thats not racism for those ignorant to think so, but on the muslim majority in the UK response to terrorism in the world perpetrated by Jihadists and Islamists. Good luck to Coburn; UKIP tells it like it is. This is the modern world, for those with eyes to see. Unhappily many don't wish to see whats staring them in the face"
SO will always say the BBC is non-partisan, non-bias, gets things about right, no matter how many BBC employees actually come out and say themselves that the BBC have a problem with bias. It isn't a Labour vs Tory bias, it is a liberal left metro elite worldview bubble view bias.
I have always said that the BBC clearly has a metropolitan, liberal bias - as do all three major political parties in this country. What I will not concede, as I see absolutely no evidence for it, is that the BBC pursues a partisan pro-Labour, anti-Tory agenda.
Cognitive dissonance?
Perhaps not, but SO can you really believe that on the one hand the Beeb are indeed institutionally biased, and that on the other it has absolutely no impact on the way they report politics (and the news in general)?
I'm not saying that I think the beeb are particularly biased to Labour, but they most certainly are much more likely to show favourable coverage/opinion with "liberal" stories and people.
That this disproportionally hits the Tories should not come as a surprise.
I had an interesting chat with OGH yesterday, about why Labour were so pessimistic about this election, (eg people quoted in the Sunday Times) when a tie in votes would probably enable them to form a minority government. I think that graph shows why. Although there've been ebbs and flows, the Labour lead has been gradually whittled away, and they fear that trend will continue to polling day.
SO will always say the BBC is non-partisan, non-bias, gets things about right, no matter how many BBC employees actually come out and say themselves that the BBC have a problem with bias. It isn't a Labour vs Tory bias, it is a liberal left metro elite worldview bubble view bias.
I have always said that the BBC clearly has a metropolitan, liberal bias - as do all three major political parties in this country. What I will not concede, as I see absolutely no evidence for it, is that the BBC pursues a partisan pro-Labour, anti-Tory agenda.
But of course that isn't true. The BBC world view is much closer to Labour's, especially with their journey leftward, with the anti-business, rich bashing, pro-immigration, pro-EU.
What is interesting, the Telegraph stink on Lib Dem's, BBC didn't run at all. It was fairly small beans, and Telegraph spin that he had anything to do with Alexander was poor, but the fact remains they had a guy in charge of funding raising advising people to make donations in a dodgy way. If the Tories had done that, BBC 100% would have run big with that, as they are with Shapps.
Of course, the BBC's many critics on the left would say that it panders to the Tories, Euro-sceptics, climate change deniers, the super-rich and those who oppose immigration. And they would produce what they consider to be strong evidence to back up their claims:
LOL...you bringing out Cardiff University Lecturer Mike Berry...LOL...very funny. I am not even going to bother going through why what he did was nonsense and he himself has a huge problem with bias.
This argument is dull. You will never except any issue at the BBC, I think there is.
Be nice to the Kippers today, Coburn's apologised for his vile smear, after some of the Kippers on here defended him and praised him.
Did they?
Are you on UKIP in Basildon South btw?
Yes they did and yes I am.
Who defended and praised him?
And what made you back UKIP in this seat?
I'll let you guess who wrote this
"I notice that muslims seem to be well entrenched in Scotland. I don't trust any of them, and thats not racism for those ignorant to think so, but on the muslim majority in the UK response to terrorism in the world perpetrated by Jihadists and Islamists. Good luck to Coburn; UKIP tells it like it is. This is the modern world, for those with eyes to see. Unhappily many don't wish to see whats staring them in the face"
Mike told me about Ian Luder a few weeks ago.
So one kipper rather than "some of the kippers"
Oh so you are on at 4/1 or so not any bigger price than that?
I had an interesting chat with OGH yesterday, about why Labour were so pessimistic about this election, (eg people quoted in the Sunday Times) when a tie in votes would probably enable them to form a minority government. I think that graph shows why. Although there've been ebbs and flows, the Labour lead has been gradually whittled away, and they fear that trend will continue to polling day.
I'm not claiming a well-documented historical genocide didn't occur. I disagree with some people about a highly contentious and utterly unproven theory. It's an ugly term, and unworthy of you.
I am merely paraphrasing the BBC's left-wing critics.
That said, I do think denying our climate has changed is a bit silly as it clearly has. Isn't the argument about what has caused this and whether it is something we need to worry about?
SO will always say the BBC is non-partisan, non-bias, gets things about right, no matter how many BBC employees actually come out and say themselves that the BBC have a problem with bias. It isn't a Labour vs Tory bias, it is a liberal left metro elite worldview bubble view bias.
I have always said that the BBC clearly has a metropolitan, liberal bias - as do all three major political parties in this country. What I will not concede, as I see absolutely no evidence for it, is that the BBC pursues a partisan pro-Labour, anti-Tory agenda.
Cognitive dissonance?
Perhaps not, but SO can you really believe that on the one hand the Beeb are indeed institutionally biased, and that on the other it has absolutely no impact on the way they report politics (and the news in general)?
I'm not saying that I think the beeb are particularly biased to Labour, but they most certainly are much more likely to show favourable coverage/opinion with "liberal" stories and people.
That this disproportionally hits the Tories should not come as a surprise.
@ Max U - I'm pretty certain that that any coalition, whether or not it is a coalition of parties which jointly command a majority, would be settled as one of the 'coalition' options.
SO will always say the BBC is non-partisan, non-bias, gets things about right, no matter how many BBC employees actually come out and say themselves that the BBC have a problem with bias. It isn't a Labour vs Tory bias, it is a liberal left metro elite worldview bubble view bias.
I have always said that the BBC clearly has a metropolitan, liberal bias - as do all three major political parties in this country. What I will not concede, as I see absolutely no evidence for it, is that the BBC pursues a partisan pro-Labour, anti-Tory agenda.
But of course that isn't true. The BBC world view is much closer to Labour's, especially with their journey leftward, with the anti-business, rich bashing, pro-immigration, pro-EU.
What is interesting, the Telegraph stink on Lib Dem's, BBC didn't run at all. It was fairly small beans, and Telegraph spin that he had anything to do with Alexander was poor, but the fact remains they had a guy in charge of funding raising advising people to make donations in a dodgy way. If the Tories had done that, BBC 100% would have run big with that, as they are with Shapps.
Of course, the BBC's many critics on the left would say that it panders to the Tories, Euro-sceptics, climate change deniers, the super-rich and those who oppose immigration. And they would produce what they consider to be strong evidence to back up their claims:
LOL...you bringing out Cardiff University Lecturer Mike Berry...LOL...very funny. I am not even going to bother going through why what he did was nonsense and he himself has a huge problem with bias.
This argument is dull. You will never except any issue at the BBC, I think there is.
Where we differ is that you believe the BBC's left wing critics are wrong, but its right wing critics are correct. I believe they are both wrong.
Yes, Dave was presumably aware that he was a bit of a chancer when he made the appointment and clearly thought his other qualities outweighed the risk.
I can't see Dave dumping him now over anything so trivial as fibbing to the House, or getting his dates mixed up. As long as he remembers what's coming up on May 7th, he'll be fine and the 1/6 with William Hill looks about right.
Yeah, this is complete froth, synthetic indignation by the Guardian, with a lavish dollop of snobbery. It's about as feeble a partisan attack as you'll ever get.
We've had some decent contenders for feeble partisan attacks recently though - Does it top two kitchens Miliband ?
Kitchengate was really funny though. It plays into everything I loathe about the current Labour leadership. They are just as white, public school/Oxford educated as the Cons, but they claim to be "of the people", a nice reminder to anyone who read about the story that Labour are the same as the Cons, worse because they claim not to be.
They also each have an identical Fat Token Authentic Prole, in the rotund shapes of Eric Pickles and John "Two Jags" Prescott, although Two Jags' authenticity is a bit more fluid. On the one hand there are the two Jags and on the other there is the humping of junior staff behind the door of his office on work time, which is rather more Lord Chatterley than Mellors.
Labour has always had better Posh Birds Slumming It than anyone else.
Mr. Observer, the issue is disagreeing with the view that man's industrial activities are partly/largely/entirely to blame for the climate changing (which has always occurred). I'm not suggesting the climate hasn't changed, just that such a thing is entirely natural and normal.
The term 'denier' has clear connotations to Holocaust denial. It's an ugly term.
I had an interesting chat with OGH yesterday, about why Labour were so pessimistic about this election, (eg people quoted in the Sunday Times) when a tie in votes would probably enable them to form a minority government. I think that graph shows why. Although there've been ebbs and flows, the Labour lead has been gradually whittled away, and they fear that trend will continue to polling day.
The graph shows the lead has fallen by 1% in five months.
Mr. Pulpstar, Miliband should've done that ages ago. Why he didn't is beyond me.
It'll either settle the issue or, more likely, the right will ask him whether he'll enter into supply and confidence - "Will Miliband be propped up by the SNP?"
Mr. Observer, the issue is disagreeing with the view that man's industrial activities are partly/largely/entirely to blame for the climate changing (which has always occurred). I'm not suggesting the climate hasn't changed, just that such a thing is entirely natural and normal.
The term 'denier' has clear connotations to Holocaust denial. It's an ugly term.
SO will always say the BBC is non-partisan, non-bias, gets things about right, no matter how many BBC employees actually come out and say themselves that the BBC have a problem with bias. It isn't a Labour vs Tory bias, it is a liberal left metro elite worldview bubble view bias.
I have always said that the BBC clearly has a metropolitan, liberal bias - as do all three major political parties in this country. What I will not concede, as I see absolutely no evidence for it, is that the BBC pursues a partisan pro-Labour, anti-Tory agenda.
Cognitive dissonance?
Perhaps not, but SO can you really believe that on the one hand the Beeb are indeed institutionally biased, and that on the other it has absolutely no impact on the way they report politics (and the news in general)?
I'm not saying that I think the beeb are particularly biased to Labour, but they most certainly are much more likely to show favourable coverage/opinion with "liberal" stories and people.
That this disproportionally hits the Tories should not come as a surprise.
The Tories are a liberal, metropolitan party.
And that's why I vote for them.
You missed a few words. They're a liberal, metropolitan, economically competent party. The Tories are the only one of those.
I believe in small government, both economically (so Conservative) and socially (socially liberal), modern Tories tick both boxes. I don't get people who want small government in one arena but big in the other, if you don't want the government telling you what to do with your money - why should the government tell you what to do in the bedroom?
"By far the most popular and widely read newspapers at the BBC are The Guardian and The Independent. Producers refer to them routinely for the line to take on running stories, and for inspiration on which items to cover. In the later stages of my career, I lost count of the number of times I asked a producer for a brief on a story, only to be handed a copy of The Guardian and told ‘it’s all in there’."
Peter Sissons
No idea what happened today at the BBC?
Funny how like when the Daily Mail broke the expenses story, the BBC wouldn't run it for a long long time. It is like the Daily Mail front page didn't exist. Now if that had been on the front of the Guardian? Same with PIE stuff, it was 5-6 days until they even mentioned it.
Phone hacking at the Mirror....only about important enough for 10th spot on the BBC website. You would hardly know there is a big court case going on and that the Mirror have been revealed to be premier league at it, compared to NOTW championship abilities.
First, Grant Shapps a throwback to the Tory 1980's loadsamoney Harry Enfield if ever there was one. Could the Tories not have found a woman or an safe pair of hands for this role, instead of someone as grating as Shapps with his ridiculous name?
Hmm, you do know he's Jewish? Would you refer to his "ridiculous name" if he was called Singh or Hussein?
I think the most troubling fact about Shapps with which lefties like me have to contend is that he's supposedly a cousin of the late, great Joe Strummer.
I had an interesting chat with OGH yesterday, about why Labour were so pessimistic about this election, (eg people quoted in the Sunday Times) when a tie in votes would probably enable them to form a minority government. I think that graph shows why. Although there've been ebbs and flows, the Labour lead has been gradually whittled away, and they fear that trend will continue to polling day.
The graph shows the lead has fallen by 1% in five months.
Monthly ELBOW Labour leads ("Super-ELBOWs"):
August 3.4% September 4.0% October 1.8% November 1.8% December 1.7% January 1.1% February 1.2% March (first two weeks) 0.1%
However, 34% is a very good number for the Conservatives with Populus, especially with UKIP on 15%.
You must, in some doubting moments, wonder what could be achieved if those 15% UKIP voters worked together with the 34% for a proper Conservative majority, instead of at best another wanky Coalition....?
Mr. Observer, it's just as bad when Osborne or others refer to 'deficit deniers' [there's a legitimate criticism that the deficit isn't taken seriously enough, but that is not the way to express it].
Abuse of language or manipulation of vocabulary used in setting out a debate is a great way to slant the playing field and ensure it's not fair or neutral.
Well they did have a woman: Baroness Warsi. And she wasn't a huge success. And has now, apparently, reinvented herself as an Islamist sympathiser, which is pathetic given that she seemed when she first started out to be willing to speak truth to power to her community.
What exactly has she done or said that marks her out as an Islamist sympathiser? The politics of the Middle East are sometimes more complex than Israel good Arabs bad particularly for those who have connections with the area as does Baroness Warsi
Given that her background is Pakistan I'm not sure what connections with or particular knowledge she has of the Middle East.
And, in November 2014 she (along with a number of Labour MPs) attended a meeting within Parliament for the launch of a Muslim manifesto (why there should be a manifesto for one religious group beats me) organised by an ‘Islamic extremist’ who has praised Al-Qaeda? I.e. one Azad Ali, the Head of Community Engagement at Mend, an ‘anti-Islamophobia think tank’ which wants a “review [of] all counter-terrorism legislation enacted since 2000″. He has, according to various sources, written of his “love” of Al-Qaeda terrorist Anwar Al-Awlaki and was suspended from his job at the Treasury after he attempted to justify the murder of British troops. He has also admitted attending speeches by Al-Qaeda hate preacher Abu Qatada. Mend has also supported Cage.
Is this really the sort of person our MPs and former Chairs of the Tory Party should be associating with?
I had an interesting chat with OGH yesterday, about why Labour were so pessimistic about this election, (eg people quoted in the Sunday Times) when a tie in votes would probably enable them to form a minority government. I think that graph shows why. Although there've been ebbs and flows, the Labour lead has been gradually whittled away, and they fear that trend will continue to polling day.
The graph shows the lead has fallen by 1% in five months.
It goes up and down, but I imake it almost 3% over that period, and almost 5% from a peak in September.
Hmm...Populus getting as bouncy as an Ashcroft. A bit strange.
And 62% of people don't like Ed Miliband. Really? I think he would be a disaster on a Brownian scale as PM but I would not claim for a minute I dislike him. I barely know the man.
SO will always say the BBC is non-partisan, non-bias, gets things about right, no matter how many BBC employees actually come out and say themselves that the BBC have a problem with bias. It isn't a Labour vs Tory bias, it is a liberal left metro elite worldview bubble view bias.
I have always said that the BBC clearly has a metropolitan, liberal bias - as do all three major political parties in this country. What I will not concede, as I see absolutely no evidence for it, is that the BBC pursues a partisan pro-Labour, anti-Tory agenda.
Cognitive dissonance?
Perhaps not, but SO can you really believe that on the one hand the Beeb are indeed institutionally biased, and that on the other it has absolutely no impact on the way they report politics (and the news in general)?
I'm not saying that I think the beeb are particularly biased to Labour, but they most certainly are much more likely to show favourable coverage/opinion with "liberal" stories and people.
That this disproportionally hits the Tories should not come as a surprise.
The Tories are a liberal, metropolitan party.
And that's why I vote for them.
You missed a few words. They're a liberal, metropolitan, economically competent party. The Tories are the only one of those.
I believe in small government, both economically (so Conservative) and socially (socially liberal), modern Tories tick both boxes. I don't get people who want small government in one arena but big in the other, if you don't want the government telling you what to do with your money - why should the government tell you what to do in the bedroom?
It was my understanding that the modern Tory party, and particularly Cameron, are all about telling people what to do when it comes to small things, nannying little measures all over the place. If that's not the case, the image problem extends to more areas than I realised.
"By far the most popular and widely read newspapers at the BBC are The Guardian and The Independent. Producers refer to them routinely for the line to take on running stories, and for inspiration on which items to cover. In the later stages of my career, I lost count of the number of times I asked a producer for a brief on a story, only to be handed a copy of The Guardian and told ‘it’s all in there’."
Peter Sissons
No idea what happened today at the BBC?
Funny how like when the Daily Mail broke the expenses story, the BBC wouldn't run it for a long long time. It is like the Daily Mail front page didn't exist. Now if that had been on the front of the Guardian? Same with PIE stuff, it was 5-6 days until they even mentioned it.
Phone hacking at the Mirror....only about important enough for 10th spot on the BBC website.
It took over a year for the Times story on CSE by Muslims in Rotherham to make the BBC bulletin. If it was a story about abuse by white men of foreign girls in the Guardian it would have been the lead story for days.
Hmm...Populus getting as bouncy as an Ashcroft. A bit strange.
And 62% of people don't like Ed Miliband. Really? I think he would be a disaster on a Brownian scale as PM but I would not claim for a minute I dislike him. I barely know the man.
Are our politics getting just a tad more febrile?
What was the exact question in relation to liking Miliband? I think that could make a huge difference.
However, 34% is a very good number for the Conservatives with Populus, especially with UKIP on 15%.
You must, in some doubting moments, wonder what could be achieved if those 15% UKIP voters worked together with the 34% for a proper Conservative majority, instead of at best another wanky Coalition....?
Yes, I do. But, I don't think it would fall out as Con + UKIP = 49%. There are large numbers of ex-Labour, ex-Lib Dems, and former non-voters among the 15%.
Yes, Dave was presumably aware that he was a bit of a chancer when he made the appointment and clearly thought his other qualities outweighed the risk.
I can't see Dave dumping him now over anything so trivial as fibbing to the House, or getting his dates mixed up. As long as he remembers what's coming up on May 7th, he'll be fine and the 1/6 with William Hill looks about right.
Yeah, this is complete froth, synthetic indignation by the Guardian, with a lavish dollop of snobbery. It's about as feeble a partisan attack as you'll ever get.
We've had some decent contenders for feeble partisan attacks recently though - Does it top two kitchens Miliband ?
Kitchengate was really funny though. It plays into everything I loathe about the current Labour leadership. They are just as white, public school/Oxford educated as the Cons, but they claim to be "of the people", a nice reminder to anyone who read about the story that Labour are the same as the Cons, worse because they claim not to be.
They also each have an identical Fat Token Authentic Prole, in the rotund shapes of Eric Pickles and John "Two Jags" Prescott, although Two Jags' authenticity is a bit more fluid. On the one hand there are the two Jags and on the other there is the humping of junior staff behind the door of his office on work time, which is rather more Lord Chatterley than Mellors.
Labour has always had better Posh Birds Slumming It than anyone else.
He was Sir Clifford, not Lord, Chatterley and he wasn't shagging anyone because he was paralysed from the waist down. Which I assume you find hilarious.
SO will always say the BBC is non-partisan, non-bias, gets things about right, no matter how many BBC employees actually come out and say themselves that the BBC have a problem with bias. It isn't a Labour vs Tory bias, it is a liberal left metro elite worldview bubble view bias.
I have always said that the BBC clearly has a metropolitan, liberal bias - as do all three major political parties in this country. What I will not concede, as I see absolutely no evidence for it, is that the BBC pursues a partisan pro-Labour, anti-Tory agenda.
But of course that isn't true. The BBC world view is much closer to Labour's, especially with their journey leftward, with the anti-business, rich bashing, pro-immigration, pro-EU.
What is interesting, the Telegraph stink on Lib Dem's, BBC didn't run at all. It was fairly small beans, and Telegraph spin that he had anything to do with Alexander was poor, but the fact remains they had a guy in charge of funding raising advising people to make donations in a dodgy way. If the Tories had done that, BBC 100% would have run big with that, as they are with Shapps.
Of course, the BBC's many critics on the left would say that it panders to the Tories, Euro-sceptics, climate change deniers, the super-rich and those who oppose immigration. And they would produce what they consider to be strong evidence to back up their claims:
LOL...you bringing out Cardiff University Lecturer Mike Berry...LOL...very funny. I am not even going to bother going through why what he did was nonsense and he himself has a huge problem with bias.
This argument is dull. You will never except any issue at the BBC, I think there is.
Where we differ is that you believe the BBC's left wing critics are wrong, but its right wing critics are correct. I believe they are both wrong.
For me I don't think either are correct to the frothing mouthing hyperbolistic degree they project, which undermines any valid points made.
Hmm...Populus getting as bouncy as an Ashcroft. A bit strange.
And 62% of people don't like Ed Miliband. Really? I think he would be a disaster on a Brownian scale as PM but I would not claim for a minute I dislike him. I barely know the man.
Are our politics getting just a tad more febrile?
I dislike him because he is either hypocritical or too easily led by his spin team (and therefore weak). Neither are good traits for a future PM. We already have a PM who is too easily led.
I tend to agree with Southam about the BBC. They have a 'liberal' metropolitan mindset. A natural sympathy for the underdog (especially if are far away or of a like mind) and a feeling that they have a breadth of vision unmatched by others.
They try not to show it and only the odd glimpse slips through.
In Upstairs Downstairs terms, they believe they straddle the classes - although they think Ukip are a little vulgar.
"Henry, dearest, have you a moment?" "Yes, m'dear." "I'm a little worried about Dolly." "Oh? What's she done now? has she been associating with those wretched communists?" "It's worse than that, dear, she's been influenced by those frightful Kippers. We can't have the maid falling into bad company. we're sort of responsible for her." "Righto dear, what do you want me to do?" "Have a word when you come back from the club; put her straight if you would, but don't make a big deal of it." "Will do, dear."
Incidentally, eighty years ago, that couple were the Tories talking about Labour. Now they could be Labour or Tories talking about Ukip.
"By far the most popular and widely read newspapers at the BBC are The Guardian and The Independent. Producers refer to them routinely for the line to take on running stories, and for inspiration on which items to cover. In the later stages of my career, I lost count of the number of times I asked a producer for a brief on a story, only to be handed a copy of The Guardian and told ‘it’s all in there’."
Peter Sissons
No idea what happened today at the BBC?
Funny how like when the Daily Mail broke the expenses story, the BBC wouldn't run it for a long long time. It is like the Daily Mail front page didn't exist. Now if that had been on the front of the Guardian? Same with PIE stuff, it was 5-6 days until they even mentioned it.
Phone hacking at the Mirror....only about important enough for 10th spot on the BBC website.
It took over a year for the Times story on CSE by Muslims in Rotherham to make the BBC bulletin. If it was a story about abuse by white men of foreign girls in the Guardian it would have been the lead story for days.
It has taken the BBC even longer to actually say openly it was "men of Asian origin" at the heart of it....for so long it was mumble mumble mumble and even they they don't really like to. You could actually intake of breath on the radio when they had an expert on who openly stated this, and that we need to do a full investigation / research into why this is the case.
Only today we have Trevor Philips also saying some uncomfortable things for your average Beeboid about race, and of course not a mention on the BBC website.
Mr. L, could be dependent on the wording. 'Not liking' someone can be different to 'disliking' them (one's the absence of positive feelings, the other's the presence of negative feelings). If the question was "Do you like Ed Miliband?" I'd expect a fairly high No. If it were phrased "Do you dislike Ed Miliband?" I'd expect the Yes figure to be smaller [than the prior question's No].
Hmm...Populus getting as bouncy as an Ashcroft. A bit strange.
And 62% of people don't like Ed Miliband. Really? I think he would be a disaster on a Brownian scale as PM but I would not claim for a minute I dislike him. I barely know the man.
Are our politics getting just a tad more febrile?
I dislike him because he is either hypocritical or too easily led by his spin team (and therefore weak). Neither are good traits for a future PM. We already have a PM who is too easily led.
He would be a terrible PM. He is weak, ignorant, foolish, has repeatedly demonstrated very poor judgement and is astonishingly inarticulate for a man who decided to make a career in politics. But I don't dislike him. Even although my name is David.
Ed Miliband to rule out a coalition that the SNP don't want anyway ?
More about shoring up his own side surely? It's like how no matter how much UKIP were tearing into Cameron and the Tories, vast numbers of grandee and pundit Tories were saying 'do a deal with them Cameron, you fool, they are just Tories really so we need to give in to all they want'. It wasn't viable even if it was true, which it isn't (Farage olive branch notwithstanding), so 'rejecting' that option would not have actually made a difference to UKIP, but could have firmed up the Tories to what they actually had to do - fight, not give in. Labour may well feel the same.
Hmm...Populus getting as bouncy as an Ashcroft. A bit strange.
And 62% of people don't like Ed Miliband. Really? I think he would be a disaster on a Brownian scale as PM but I would not claim for a minute I dislike him. I barely know the man.
Are our politics getting just a tad more febrile?
What was the exact question in relation to liking Miliband? I think that could make a huge difference.
Don't know. I just skimmed this thread and chucked in my tuppence worth.
Be nice to the Kippers today, Coburn's apologised for his vile smear, after some of the Kippers on here defended him and praised him.
Did they?
Are you on UKIP in Basildon South btw?
Yes they did and yes I am.
Who defended and praised him?
And what made you back UKIP in this seat?
I'll let you guess who wrote this
"I notice that muslims seem to be well entrenched in Scotland. I don't trust any of them, and thats not racism for those ignorant to think so, but on the muslim majority in the UK response to terrorism in the world perpetrated by Jihadists and Islamists. Good luck to Coburn; UKIP tells it like it is. This is the modern world, for those with eyes to see. Unhappily many don't wish to see whats staring them in the face"
Mike told me about Ian Luder a few weeks ago.
So one kipper rather than "some of the kippers"
Oh so you are on at 4/1 or so not any bigger price than that?
No there were other Kippers defending him and trying to pass it off as a joke.
Looking back at it, I backed UKIP in this seat last October, when there were rumours Stephen Metcalfe was about to defect/a UKIP poll in the field in the seat, like they did with Reckless and Carswell.
First, Grant Shapps a throwback to the Tory 1980's loadsamoney Harry Enfield if ever there was one. Could the Tories not have found a woman or an safe pair of hands for this role, instead of someone as grating as Shapps with his ridiculous name?
Hmm, you do know he's Jewish? Would you refer to his "ridiculous name" if he was called Singh or Hussein?
I think the most troubling fact about Shapps with which lefties like me have to contend is that he's supposedly a cousin of the late, great Joe Strummer.
SO will always say the BBC is non-partisan, non-bias, gets things about right, no matter how many BBC employees actually come out and say themselves that the BBC have a problem with bias. It isn't a Labour vs Tory bias, it is a liberal left metro elite worldview bubble view bias.
I have always said that the BBC clearly has a metropolitan, liberal bias - as do all three major political parties in this country. What I will not concede, as I see absolutely no evidence for it, is that the BBC pursues a partisan pro-Labour, anti-Tory agenda.
Cognitive dissonance?
Perhaps not, but SO can you really believe that on the one hand the Beeb are indeed institutionally biased, and that on the other it has absolutely no impact on the way they report politics (and the news in general)?
I'm not saying that I think the beeb are particularly biased to Labour, but they most certainly are much more likely to show favourable coverage/opinion with "liberal" stories and people.
That this disproportionally hits the Tories should not come as a surprise.
The Tories are a liberal, metropolitan party.
And that's why I vote for them.
You missed a few words. They're a liberal, metropolitan, economically competent party. The Tories are the only one of those.
I believe in small government, both economically (so Conservative) and socially (socially liberal), modern Tories tick both boxes. I don't get people who want small government in one arena but big in the other, if you don't want the government telling you what to do with your money - why should the government tell you what to do in the bedroom?
Quite.
My issue with the Tories is the unfunded, unsupported pledge to continue to feed more of my money to Scotland. They had not the slightest right to make any such pledge, given that the rest of the UK wasn't getting to vote on the matter. If Cameron wanted to tell Scotland they'll get more English money if they vote Yes then the only honest thing to do thereafter was give England a referendum on whether to endorse such an offer.
The sooner the 86% leftist voters of Scotland are cut loose and made to fund socialism out of their own pockets, the better. Tough love, really.
Like the GDR they'll take 50 years of misery to come to their senses, but unlike the GDR there'll be no BRD waiting to let them back in.
There are quite alot of us bettors that want Labour dead, buried and chucked in an iron casket box in the Clyde never to be seen or heard of again up in Scotland.
But where would the betting interest in Scottish elections be in in the future if they don't make some kind of revival after May?
"By far the most popular and widely read newspapers at the BBC are The Guardian and The Independent. Producers refer to them routinely for the line to take on running stories, and for inspiration on which items to cover. In the later stages of my career, I lost count of the number of times I asked a producer for a brief on a story, only to be handed a copy of The Guardian and told ‘it’s all in there’."
Peter Sissons
No idea what happened today at the BBC?
Funny how like when the Daily Mail broke the expenses story, the BBC wouldn't run it for a long long time. It is like the Daily Mail front page didn't exist. Now if that had been on the front of the Guardian? Same with PIE stuff, it was 5-6 days until they even mentioned it.
Phone hacking at the Mirror....only about important enough for 10th spot on the BBC website.
It took over a year for the Times story on CSE by Muslims in Rotherham to make the BBC bulletin. If it was a story about abuse by white men of foreign girls in the Guardian it would have been the lead story for days.
The BBC has done some great work on reporting gang rape in India:
"By far the most popular and widely read newspapers at the BBC are The Guardian and The Independent. Producers refer to them routinely for the line to take on running stories, and for inspiration on which items to cover. In the later stages of my career, I lost count of the number of times I asked a producer for a brief on a story, only to be handed a copy of The Guardian and told ‘it’s all in there’."
Peter Sissons
No idea what happened today at the BBC?
Funny how like when the Daily Mail broke the expenses story, the BBC wouldn't run it for a long long time. It is like the Daily Mail front page didn't exist. Now if that had been on the front of the Guardian? Same with PIE stuff, it was 5-6 days until they even mentioned it.
Phone hacking at the Mirror....only about important enough for 10th spot on the BBC website.
It took over a year for the Times story on CSE by Muslims in Rotherham to make the BBC bulletin. If it was a story about abuse by white men of foreign girls in the Guardian it would have been the lead story for days.
The BBC has done some great work on reporting gang rape in India:
And closer to home where something can actually be done about it?
While that was a very well made programme and it got to the issue of rape in India very well, it isn't relevant to the UK. We have different problems here. The current issue is Muslims raping young vulnerable white girls all over the country and previously it was the VIP rape circles. The BBC have been absolutely useless on both counts.
Be nice to the Kippers today, Coburn's apologised for his vile smear, after some of the Kippers on here defended him and praised him.
Did they?
Are you on UKIP in Basildon South btw?
Yes they did and yes I am.
Who defended and praised him?
And what made you back UKIP in this seat?
I'll let you guess who wrote this
"I notice that muslims seem to be well entrenched in Scotland. I don't trust any of them, and thats not racism for those ignorant to think so, but on the muslim majority in the UK response to terrorism in the world perpetrated by Jihadists and Islamists. Good luck to Coburn; UKIP tells it like it is. This is the modern world, for those with eyes to see. Unhappily many don't wish to see whats staring them in the face"
Mike told me about Ian Luder a few weeks ago.
So one kipper rather than "some of the kippers"
Oh so you are on at 4/1 or so not any bigger price than that?
No there were other Kippers defending him and trying to pass it off as a joke.
Looking back at it, I backed UKIP in this seat last October, when there were rumours Stephen Metcalfe was about to defect/a UKIP poll in the field in the seat, like they did with Reckless and Carswell.
SO will always say the BBC is non-partisan, non-bias, gets things about right, no matter how many BBC employees actually come out and say themselves that the BBC have a problem with bias. It isn't a Labour vs Tory bias, it is a liberal left metro elite worldview bubble view bias.
I have always said that the BBC clearly has a metropolitan, liberal bias - as do all three major political parties in this country. What I will not concede, as I see absolutely no evidence for it, is that the BBC pursues a partisan pro-Labour, anti-Tory agenda.
Cognitive dissonance?
Perhaps not, but SO can you really believe that on the one hand the Beeb are indeed institutionally biased, and that on the other it has absolutely no impact on the way they report politics (and the news in general)?
I'm not saying that I think the beeb are particularly biased to Labour, but they most certainly are much more likely to show favourable coverage/opinion with "liberal" stories and people.
That this disproportionally hits the Tories should not come as a surprise.
The Tories are a liberal, metropolitan party.
And that's why I vote for them.
You missed a few words. They're a liberal, metropolitan, economically competent party. The Tories are the only one of those.
I believe in small government, both economically (so Conservative) and socially (socially liberal), modern Tories tick both boxes. I don't get people who want small government in one arena but big in the other, if you don't want the government telling you what to do with your money - why should the government tell you what to do in the bedroom?
It was my understanding that the modern Tory party, and particularly Cameron, are all about telling people what to do when it comes to small things, nannying little measures all over the place. If that's not the case, the image problem extends to more areas than I realised.
I thought the watchword was "Nudge" - libertarian paternalism.
Yes, Dave was presumably aware that he was a bit of a chancer when he made the appointment and clearly thought his other qualities outweighed the risk.
I can't see Dave dumping him now over anything so trivial as fibbing to the House, or getting his dates mixed up. As long as he remembers what's coming up on May 7th, he'll be fine and the 1/6 with William Hill looks about right.
Yeah, this is complete froth, synthetic indignation by the Guardian, with a lavish dollop of snobbery. It's about as feeble a partisan attack as you'll ever get.
We've had some decent contenders for feeble partisan attacks recently though - Does it top two kitchens Miliband ?
Kitchengate was really funny though. It plays into everything I loathe about the current Labour leadership. They are just as white, public school/Oxford educated as the Cons, but they claim to be "of the people", a nice reminder to anyone who read about the story that Labour are the same as the Cons, worse because they claim not to be.
They also each have an identical Fat Token Authentic Prole, in the rotund shapes of Eric Pickles and John "Two Jags" Prescott, although Two Jags' authenticity is a bit more fluid. On the one hand there are the two Jags and on the other there is the humping of junior staff behind the door of his office on work time, which is rather more Lord Chatterley than Mellors.
Labour has always had better Posh Birds Slumming It than anyone else.
He was Sir Clifford, not Lord, Chatterley and he wasn't shagging anyone because he was paralysed from the waist down. Which I assume you find hilarious.
Couldn't stand Lawrence and I literally fell asleep when reading the great northern wazzock. My point is merely that Two Jags' bonking the under-parlour maid is much more the kind of thing you'd associate the nobs with doing, so he kinda fails the proliness test there.
There are quite alot of us bettors that want Labour dead, buried and chucked in an iron casket box in the Clyde never to be seen or heard of again up in Scotland.
But where would the betting interest in Scottish elections be in in the future if they don't make some kind of revival after May?
Scottish Tory surges?
Oh, I see what you mean.
According to election forecast Tories are taking a clean sweep of the borders !
3 tricky seats to call, past Mundell holding I'm really not sure on these. And even Mundell is not a cert.
"By far the most popular and widely read newspapers at the BBC are The Guardian and The Independent. Producers refer to them routinely for the line to take on running stories, and for inspiration on which items to cover. In the later stages of my career, I lost count of the number of times I asked a producer for a brief on a story, only to be handed a copy of The Guardian and told ‘it’s all in there’."
Peter Sissons
No idea what happened today at the BBC?
Funny how like when the Daily Mail broke the expenses story, the BBC wouldn't run it for a long long time. It is like the Daily Mail front page didn't exist. Now if that had been on the front of the Guardian? Same with PIE stuff, it was 5-6 days until they even mentioned it.
Phone hacking at the Mirror....only about important enough for 10th spot on the BBC website.
It took over a year for the Times story on CSE by Muslims in Rotherham to make the BBC bulletin. If it was a story about abuse by white men of foreign girls in the Guardian it would have been the lead story for days.
The BBC has done some great work on reporting gang rape in India:
And closer to home where something can actually be done about it?
While that was a very well made programme and it got to the issue of rape in India very well, it isn't relevant to the UK. We have different problems here. The current issue is Muslims raping young vulnerable white girls all over the country and previously it was the VIP rape circles. The BBC have been absolutely useless on both counts.
As has the media generally, with the recent and very notable exception of the Times.
Be nice to the Kippers today, Coburn's apologised for his vile smear, after some of the Kippers on here defended him and praised him.
Did they?
Are you on UKIP in Basildon South btw?
Yes they did and yes I am.
Who defended and praised him?
And what made you back UKIP in this seat?
I'll let you guess who wrote this
"I notice that muslims seem to be well entrenched in Scotland. I don't trust any of them, and thats not racism for those ignorant to think so, but on the muslim majority in the UK response to terrorism in the world perpetrated by Jihadists and Islamists. Good luck to Coburn; UKIP tells it like it is. This is the modern world, for those with eyes to see. Unhappily many don't wish to see whats staring them in the face"
Mike told me about Ian Luder a few weeks ago.
So one kipper rather than "some of the kippers"
Oh so you are on at 4/1 or so not any bigger price than that?
No there were other Kippers defending him and trying to pass it off as a joke.
Looking back at it, I backed UKIP in this seat last October, when there were rumours Stephen Metcalfe was about to defect/a UKIP poll in the field in the seat, like they did with Reckless and Carswell.
Comments
ICM is now awaited with interest - showed a 4-point CON lead last month though I don't think the 36% number for the Conservatives has been equalled let alone surpassed since.
A news organisation that does not report the news in the way that you would like it to be reported is not biased. You are.
Just look at what they did to poor Lord McAlpine.
You just know, if he had been a Labour peer, it would never have happened.
When I put up my own model a couple of weeks ago, I received some very helpful feedback.
I have revised it accordingly (see below) so that it is MUCH easier to use and I would again really appreciate any feedback (positive or negative!). It can be found at https://www.dropbox.com/s/83sxf8225s7h3mm/2015 General Election Possibilities Latest.xlsx?dl=0
The revisions are:
1) It is easy to find individual seats, though swings and roundabouts mean it is the overall number of seats it aims for.
2) It still allows for different drifts away from LD in seats they hold, but now allows different drifts to both UKIP and Green in CON/LAB marginals.
3) While it still relies on a whole matrix of votes moving from one party to another in proportion to the votes they received in 2010, *IT IS ALSO POSSIBLE TO INPUT NATIONAL VOTE SHARES TO GET A PREDICTION*. It does this by taking a “Base Case” and then looking at shifts from this in an intelligent way. For example, I currently use a Base Case which says UKIP gains 20% of CON 2010 voters and 7% of LAB 2010 voters in non-marginal seats ; 12% of CON and 4% of LAB in marginals, plus 9% of LD 2010 voters in seats not currently held by LD; 7% in seats with LD incumbents. Overall this gives a UKIP share of 15%. If we now put in a UKIP share of 12%, it scales all of these flows down by 20%.
4) You can still look at the matrix this produces and see if it is reasonable.
5) It is possible to reset the Base Case if there is a fundamental shift in behaviour or for different assumptions.
6) It accounts for Scotland separately – which is very sensitive to SNP share, and then allocates “whatever is left” of the national vote shares into England and Wales. You put in assumptions for Scotland and a PC share in Wales only.
What is interesting, the Telegraph sting on Lib Dem's, BBC didn't run at all. It was fairly small beans, and Telegraph spin that he had anything to do with Alexander was poor, but the fact remains they had a guy in charge of funding raising advising people to make donations in a dodgy way. If the Tories had done that, BBC 100% would have run big with that, as they are with Shapps.
Populus always had to be an outlier
Con and Lab neck and neck on 33.2%!
https://twitter.com/Sunil_P2/status/577253999801344000
http://www.newstatesman.com/broadcast/2013/08/hard-evidence-how-biased-bbc
https://twitter.com/Sunil_P2/status/577254673398304768
Are you on UKIP in Basildon South btw?
https://twitter.com/Sunil_P2/status/577255504986116097
However, 34% is a very good number for the Conservatives with Populus, especially with UKIP on 15%.
Perhaps not, but SO can you really believe that on the one hand the Beeb are indeed institutionally biased, and that on the other it has absolutely no impact on the way they report politics (and the news in general)?
I'm not saying that I think the beeb are particularly biased to Labour, but they most certainly are much more likely to show favourable coverage/opinion with "liberal" stories and people.
That this disproportionally hits the Tories should not come as a surprise.
I'm not claiming a well-documented historical genocide didn't occur. I disagree with some people about a highly contentious and utterly unproven theory. It's an ugly term, and unworthy of you.
And what made you back UKIP in this seat?
What exactly has she done or said that marks her out as an Islamist sympathiser? The politics of the Middle East are sometimes more complex than Israel good Arabs bad particularly for those who have connections with the area as does Baroness Warsi
"I notice that muslims seem to be well entrenched in Scotland. I don't trust any of them, and thats not racism for those ignorant to think so, but on the muslim majority in the UK response to terrorism in the world perpetrated by Jihadists and Islamists. Good luck to Coburn; UKIP tells it like it is. This is the modern world, for those with eyes to see. Unhappily many don't wish to see whats staring them in the face"
Mike told me about Ian Luder a few weeks ago.
This argument is dull. You will never except any issue at the BBC, I think there is.
Oh so you are on at 4/1 or so not any bigger price than that?
That said, I do think denying our climate has changed is a bit silly as it clearly has. Isn't the argument about what has caused this and whether it is something we need to worry about?
Vote Green If You Live In England, Says Nicola Sturgeon
http://www.buzzfeed.com/jamieross/vote-green-says-sturgeon?utm_term=4ldqpia
And she reckons the SNP don't want to bring a wrecking ball to Westminster (what the freakin hell is backing the greens then?)
At least it was a proper apology and not an 'I'm sorry if you were offended' type waffles.
ELBOW for polls up to Tuesday (IIRC) gave the Tories a 2.0% lead! 2.0%, would you believe it!
Then they ended up level* with Lab by Sunday!
Having said that, today's Populus does give a strong indication that Crossover may finally come about by next Sunday!
(* to 1 decimal place. To 2 decimals, Tories were 0.01% ahead!)
Labour has always had better Posh Birds Slumming It than anyone else.
Mr. Observer, the issue is disagreeing with the view that man's industrial activities are partly/largely/entirely to blame for the climate changing (which has always occurred). I'm not suggesting the climate hasn't changed, just that such a thing is entirely natural and normal.
The term 'denier' has clear connotations to Holocaust denial. It's an ugly term.
It'll either settle the issue or, more likely, the right will ask him whether he'll enter into supply and confidence - "Will Miliband be propped up by the SNP?"
You missed a few words. They're a liberal, metropolitan, economically competent party. The Tories are the only one of those.
I believe in small government, both economically (so Conservative) and socially (socially liberal), modern Tories tick both boxes. I don't get people who want small government in one arena but big in the other, if you don't want the government telling you what to do with your money - why should the government tell you what to do in the bedroom?
Peter Sissons
No idea what happened today at the BBC?
Funny how like when the Daily Mail broke the expenses story, the BBC wouldn't run it for a long long time. It is like the Daily Mail front page didn't exist. Now if that had been on the front of the Guardian? Same with PIE stuff, it was 5-6 days until they even mentioned it.
Phone hacking at the Mirror....only about important enough for 10th spot on the BBC website. You would hardly know there is a big court case going on and that the Mirror have been revealed to be premier league at it, compared to NOTW championship abilities.
Ukip granted two party election broadcasts – but Greens lose out
http://www.theguardian.com/media/2015/mar/16/ukip-party-election-broadcasts-greens-ofcom
August 3.4%
September 4.0%
October 1.8%
November 1.8%
December 1.7%
January 1.1%
February 1.2%
March (first two weeks) 0.1%
isam June 2014
South Basildon and East Thurrock
UKIP won 42% at the locals (7/10 wards were contested)
45% Basildon in the Euros
46% in Thurrock Euros
20/1 Ladbrokes
TheScreamingEaglesTheScreamingEagles June 2014
thanks
isam June 2014
Did you get on TSE? They have suspd it
TheScreamingEaglesTheScreamingEagles June 2014
I did, limited stakes
Abuse of language or manipulation of vocabulary used in setting out a debate is a great way to slant the playing field and ensure it's not fair or neutral.
In answer to your question, see this - http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/politics/11427370/Islamic-radicals-at-the-heart-of-Whitehall.html.
And, in November 2014 she (along with a number of Labour MPs) attended a meeting within Parliament for the launch of a Muslim manifesto (why there should be a manifesto for one religious group beats me) organised by an ‘Islamic extremist’ who has praised Al-Qaeda? I.e. one Azad Ali, the Head of Community Engagement at Mend, an ‘anti-Islamophobia think tank’ which wants a “review [of] all counter-terrorism legislation enacted since 2000″. He has, according to various sources, written of his “love” of Al-Qaeda terrorist Anwar Al-Awlaki and was suspended from his job at the Treasury after he attempted to justify the murder of British troops. He has also admitted attending speeches by Al-Qaeda hate preacher Abu Qatada. Mend has also supported Cage.
Is this really the sort of person our MPs and former Chairs of the Tory Party should be associating with?
And 62% of people don't like Ed Miliband. Really? I think he would be a disaster on a Brownian scale as PM but I would not claim for a minute I dislike him. I barely know the man.
Are our politics getting just a tad more febrile?
I tend to agree with Southam about the BBC. They have a 'liberal' metropolitan mindset. A natural sympathy for the underdog (especially if are far away or of a like mind) and a feeling that they have a breadth of vision unmatched by others.
They try not to show it and only the odd glimpse slips through.
In Upstairs Downstairs terms, they believe they straddle the classes - although they think Ukip are a little vulgar.
"Henry, dearest, have you a moment?"
"Yes, m'dear."
"I'm a little worried about Dolly."
"Oh? What's she done now? has she been associating with those wretched communists?"
"It's worse than that, dear, she's been influenced by those frightful Kippers. We can't have the maid falling into bad company. we're sort of responsible for her."
"Righto dear, what do you want me to do?"
"Have a word when you come back from the club; put her straight if you would, but don't make a big deal of it."
"Will do, dear."
Incidentally, eighty years ago, that couple were the Tories talking about Labour. Now they could be Labour or Tories talking about Ukip.
Only today we have Trevor Philips also saying some uncomfortable things for your average Beeboid about race, and of course not a mention on the BBC website.
Looking back at it, I backed UKIP in this seat last October, when there were rumours Stephen Metcalfe was about to defect/a UKIP poll in the field in the seat, like they did with Reckless and Carswell.
https://twitter.com/TSEofPB/status/523104287438950400
Edit and going back further than that
My issue with the Tories is the unfunded, unsupported pledge to continue to feed more of my money to Scotland. They had not the slightest right to make any such pledge, given that the rest of the UK wasn't getting to vote on the matter. If Cameron wanted to tell Scotland they'll get more English money if they vote Yes then the only honest thing to do thereafter was give England a referendum on whether to endorse such an offer.
The sooner the 86% leftist voters of Scotland are cut loose and made to fund socialism out of their own pockets, the better. Tough love, really.
Like the GDR they'll take 50 years of misery to come to their senses, but unlike the GDR there'll be no BRD waiting to let them back in.
Few serious scientists use the term - "sceptic" is far more appropriate.
You will have Southam dancing on a head of a pin for the rest of the day now.
Oh, I see what you mean.
http://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/mar/05/indian-government-furious-bbc-over-gang-rape-daughter-mukesh-singh
While that was a very well made programme and it got to the issue of rape in India very well, it isn't relevant to the UK. We have different problems here. The current issue is Muslims raping young vulnerable white girls all over the country and previously it was the VIP rape circles. The BBC have been absolutely useless on both counts.
http://www.oddschecker.com/politics/british-politics/basildon-south-and-east-thurrock/winning-party/bet-history/ukip/today
Surprised you don't remember/reference the biggest price you got on at
isam June 2014
South Basildon and East Thurrock
20/1 Ladbrokes
TheScreamingEaglesTheScreamingEagles June 2014
thanks
isam June 2014
Did you get on TSE? They have suspd it
TheScreamingEaglesTheScreamingEagles June 2014
I did, limited stakes
3 tricky seats to call, past Mundell holding I'm really not sure on these. And even Mundell is not a cert.
'I've Revised My General Election Predictions For Scotland & It Means a Minority Government Looms Ever More Likely
The detailed seat breakdown is listed below but this is how I now predict the parties will end up on May 7th in Scotland…
SNP 42
Labour 11
LibDem 3
Conservative 3'
http://tinyurl.com/k4d4tgw
https://www.ipsos-mori.com/researchpublications/researcharchive/3541/Labour-are-the-most-popular-party-but-Miliband-trails-behind.aspx