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  • Spoils if mentioned before

    @BBCRadioSolent: Portsmouth MP Mike Hancock to stand in 2015 general election - BBC News http://t.co/vb7i2WrcDB http://t.co/caHHEfuWGm
  • TykejohnnoTykejohnno Posts: 7,362
    Lucy Powell on with Andrew neil.

    http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p02n0pk9

    Labours jackanory policies,a labour government should be fun after watching our lucy - lol
  • MikeKMikeK Posts: 9,053
    Things are hotting up in Yemen:

    #Egypt seizes Bab el Mandeb ahead of #Iran. #Saudis bomb Iran-backed #Yemeni Houthis. http://t.co/Zhq4dAZQcW pic.twitter.com/7kR6FLZof9

    — פטריק פולוק (@redbrasco) March 29, 2015
  • rottenboroughrottenborough Posts: 63,137
    Maybe it's that sunday morning feeling, or clocks going forward, but I got a strange, but sufficient feeling earlier that Ed might somehow pull this off such that I've sprinkled a little more cash around Lab minority/ Lab-libdems.

    I'll probably feel better by this evening ;-)
  • Paul_Mid_BedsPaul_Mid_Beds Posts: 1,409
    Pulpstar said:

    isam said:

    Peter Hitchen's dislike of Cameron is such that he is considering voting Labour!

    Also includes Cameron's house that we helped pay for, and Dave wiping his nose on his hand while preparing dinner (I agree that if Ed had done so, it would have been all over the media)

    http://hitchensblog.mailonsunday.co.uk/

    He's right about the media, I've never seen it so utterly sycophantic and toadying in all my days.

    Edit: Except for Blair, but then I never liked or voted for that creep anyway.
    My suspicion is that Leveson is responsible for a lot of the hostility to Miliband.
  • ThomasNasheThomasNashe Posts: 5,331

    Non-betting query:

    I'm doing a little research for fun, and I am looking for a handful of three- or four-way marginals, preferably where the incumbent is standing down.

    Thanks in advance. ;-)

    Portsmouth South, might even be a 4 way.
    More likely a two way Con/LD. Tory candidate was thrown off Winchester council for non-attendance for 6 months. It's well known in this area and is a bit of a handicap.
    Hancock has now said on TV that he is standing again. So that will F up the LD chances.
    Requires someone with local knowledge, but I suspect he won't make much impact as an independent - he's been so thoroughly discredited?
  • logical_songlogical_song Posts: 9,932

    Non-betting query:

    I'm doing a little research for fun, and I am looking for a handful of three- or four-way marginals, preferably where the incumbent is standing down.

    Thanks in advance. ;-)

    Portsmouth South, might even be a 4 way.
    More likely a two way Con/LD. Tory candidate was thrown off Winchester council for non-attendance for 6 months. It's well known in this area and is a bit of a handicap.
    Hancock has now said on TV that he is standing again. So that will F up the LD chances.
    Requires someone with local knowledge, but I suspect he won't make much impact as an independent - he's been so thoroughly discredited?
    Quite right. I guess he gets paid if he stands and loses.
    It'll be Con or LD.
    Here's UKIP's news in Pompey South:
    http://www.portsmouth.co.uk/news/local/turmoil-for-ukip-as-members-quit-over-criminal-past-of-portsmouth-south-chairman-1-6546271
  • New Lib Dem BME strategy?

    Michael Crick ✔ @MichaelLCrick
    Lauren Keith picked as Lib Dem candidate for Brent Central, so party has 6 women, but no BME cands, it seems, in its 10 retirement seats
  • Non-betting query:

    I'm doing a little research for fun, and I am looking for a handful of three- or four-way marginals, preferably where the incumbent is standing down.

    Thanks in advance. ;-)

    Portsmouth South, might even be a 4 way.
    More likely a two way Con/LD. Tory candidate was thrown off Winchester council for non-attendance for 6 months. It's well known in this area and is a bit of a handicap.
    Hancock has now said on TV that he is standing again. So that will F up the LD chances.
    Requires someone with local knowledge, but I suspect he won't make much impact as an independent - he's been so thoroughly discredited?
    Quite right. I guess he gets paid if he stands and loses.
    It'll be Con or LD.
    Here's UKIP's news in Pompey South:
    http://www.portsmouth.co.uk/news/local/turmoil-for-ukip-as-members-quit-over-criminal-past-of-portsmouth-south-chairman-1-6546271
    £30,000+
  • IndigoIndigo Posts: 9,966

    Non-betting query:

    I'm doing a little research for fun, and I am looking for a handful of three- or four-way marginals, preferably where the incumbent is standing down.

    Thanks in advance. ;-)

    Portsmouth South, might even be a 4 way.
    More likely a two way Con/LD. Tory candidate was thrown off Winchester council for non-attendance for 6 months. It's well known in this area and is a bit of a handicap.
    Hancock has now said on TV that he is standing again. So that will F up the LD chances.
    Requires someone with local knowledge, but I suspect he won't make much impact as an independent - he's been so thoroughly discredited?
    Quite right. I guess he gets paid if he stands and loses.
    It'll be Con or LD.
    Here's UKIP's news in Pompey South:
    http://www.portsmouth.co.uk/news/local/turmoil-for-ukip-as-members-quit-over-criminal-past-of-portsmouth-south-chairman-1-6546271
    Might be more honest to say here is old news of UKIP a couple of months or so ago.
  • Non-betting query:

    I'm doing a little research for fun, and I am looking for a handful of three- or four-way marginals, preferably where the incumbent is standing down.

    Thanks in advance. ;-)

    Portsmouth South, might even be a 4 way.
    More likely a two way Con/LD. Tory candidate was thrown off Winchester council for non-attendance for 6 months. It's well known in this area and is a bit of a handicap.
    Hancock has now said on TV that he is standing again. So that will F up the LD chances.
    Requires someone with local knowledge, but I suspect he won't make much impact as an independent - he's been so thoroughly discredited?
    He will only attract votes from the LDs and in a tight marginal that might bring a Conservative victory.
  • IndigoIndigo Posts: 9,966

    New Lib Dem BME strategy?

    Michael Crick ✔ @MichaelLCrick
    Lauren Keith picked as Lib Dem candidate for Brent Central, so party has 6 women, but no BME cands, it seems, in its 10 retirement seats

    They should have a secret A list like Dave, diverse in every possibly way except for them all being metropolitan liberals.
  • HurstLlamaHurstLlama Posts: 9,098

    Schards said:

    Andrew Neil drilled into Labour's deficit reduction plans with Lucy Powell to find that their tax rise will raise a maximum of £2bn and their cuts a maximum of £1bn. Yet she just blandly retorts "we will deal the deficit"

    Look at the detail and it's absolutely clear they won't.

    ... Is this what the electorate want - a free lunch?
    Well, yes and why not? People will always act in what they perceive to be their best interests and the nature of our democracy (i.e the tyranny of the largest minority) enables them to vote for the free lunch with no cost to themselves.

    Eventually the system will collapse as the number of people actually generating wealth becomes too small to fund the number consuming it and it is no longer possible to borrow enough to bridge the gap and in the meantime we slowly descend into poverty. However, as we are probably going to find out, there are insufficient votes in trying to do anything about it so politicians will not - they also act in their perceived best interests.
  • FlightpathFlightpath Posts: 4,012
    The argument down thread about Scottish economy since 1980 is risible. The usual rubbish from the Scottish Nat cheerleaders.
    With independent Scotland from 1980 there would be no Gordon Brown ruining the UK economy and probably no Tony Blair as well. No Scottish Lab MPs propping up a Labour majority.
    As such we would have had well run and well regulated English banks run from London not Edinburgh.

  • ThomasNasheThomasNashe Posts: 5,331

    Non-betting query:

    I'm doing a little research for fun, and I am looking for a handful of three- or four-way marginals, preferably where the incumbent is standing down.

    Thanks in advance. ;-)

    Portsmouth South, might even be a 4 way.
    More likely a two way Con/LD. Tory candidate was thrown off Winchester council for non-attendance for 6 months. It's well known in this area and is a bit of a handicap.
    Hancock has now said on TV that he is standing again. So that will F up the LD chances.
    Requires someone with local knowledge, but I suspect he won't make much impact as an independent - he's been so thoroughly discredited?
    He will only attract votes from the LDs and in a tight marginal that might bring a Conservative victory.
    He might have some success with the ageing roue demographic, but not much beyond - and I wouldn't know whether they were disproportionately LD in 2010.
  • IndigoIndigo Posts: 9,966

    Schards said:

    Andrew Neil drilled into Labour's deficit reduction plans with Lucy Powell to find that their tax rise will raise a maximum of £2bn and their cuts a maximum of £1bn. Yet she just blandly retorts "we will deal the deficit"

    Look at the detail and it's absolutely clear they won't.

    ... Is this what the electorate want - a free lunch?
    Well, yes and why not? People will always act in what they perceive to be their best interests and the nature of our democracy (i.e the tyranny of the largest minority) enables them to vote for the free lunch with no cost to themselves.

    Eventually the system will collapse as the number of people actually generating wealth becomes too small to fund the number consuming it and it is no longer possible to borrow enough to bridge the gap and in the meantime we slowly descend into poverty. However, as we are probably going to find out, there are insufficient votes in trying to do anything about it so politicians will not - they also act in their perceived best interests.
    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atlas_Shrugged
  • FlightpathFlightpath Posts: 4,012

    Pulpstar said:

    isam said:

    Peter Hitchen's dislike of Cameron is such that he is considering voting Labour!

    Also includes Cameron's house that we helped pay for, and Dave wiping his nose on his hand while preparing dinner (I agree that if Ed had done so, it would have been all over the media)

    http://hitchensblog.mailonsunday.co.uk/

    He's right about the media, I've never seen it so utterly sycophantic and toadying in all my days.

    Edit: Except for Blair, but then I never liked or voted for that creep anyway.
    My suspicion is that Leveson is responsible for a lot of the hostility to Miliband.
    Really? It was Cameron who wanted the Royal Charter solution and that was attacked by the likes of the Spectator and the rest of the press.
    The press want weak government so they can get away with their own excesses.
  • dr_spyndr_spyn Posts: 11,300
    Did Labour place orders for mugs with British potters?

    Am now looking forward to offering tea to Labour canvassers.
  • logical_songlogical_song Posts: 9,932
    Indigo said:

    Non-betting query:

    I'm doing a little research for fun, and I am looking for a handful of three- or four-way marginals, preferably where the incumbent is standing down.

    Thanks in advance. ;-)

    Portsmouth South, might even be a 4 way.
    More likely a two way Con/LD. Tory candidate was thrown off Winchester council for non-attendance for 6 months. It's well known in this area and is a bit of a handicap.
    Hancock has now said on TV that he is standing again. So that will F up the LD chances.
    Requires someone with local knowledge, but I suspect he won't make much impact as an independent - he's been so thoroughly discredited?
    Quite right. I guess he gets paid if he stands and loses.
    It'll be Con or LD.
    Here's UKIP's news in Pompey South:
    http://www.portsmouth.co.uk/news/local/turmoil-for-ukip-as-members-quit-over-criminal-past-of-portsmouth-south-chairman-1-6546271
    Might be more honest to say here is old news of UKIP a couple of months or so ago.
    Two months old today, has much changed since then?
  • Indigo said:

    Schards said:

    Andrew Neil drilled into Labour's deficit reduction plans with Lucy Powell to find that their tax rise will raise a maximum of £2bn and their cuts a maximum of £1bn. Yet she just blandly retorts "we will deal the deficit"

    Look at the detail and it's absolutely clear they won't.

    ... Is this what the electorate want - a free lunch?
    Well, yes and why not? People will always act in what they perceive to be their best interests and the nature of our democracy (i.e the tyranny of the largest minority) enables them to vote for the free lunch with no cost to themselves.

    Eventually the system will collapse as the number of people actually generating wealth becomes too small to fund the number consuming it and it is no longer possible to borrow enough to bridge the gap and in the meantime we slowly descend into poverty. However, as we are probably going to find out, there are insufficient votes in trying to do anything about it so politicians will not - they also act in their perceived best interests.
    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atlas_Shrugged
    Very true. We seem to be headed back that way again. The looters take over Govt and we are back to 1978.
  • logical_songlogical_song Posts: 9,932

    Non-betting query:

    I'm doing a little research for fun, and I am looking for a handful of three- or four-way marginals, preferably where the incumbent is standing down.

    Thanks in advance. ;-)

    Portsmouth South, might even be a 4 way.
    More likely a two way Con/LD. Tory candidate was thrown off Winchester council for non-attendance for 6 months. It's well known in this area and is a bit of a handicap.
    Hancock has now said on TV that he is standing again. So that will F up the LD chances.
    Requires someone with local knowledge, but I suspect he won't make much impact as an independent - he's been so thoroughly discredited?
    Quite right. I guess he gets paid if he stands and loses.
    It'll be Con or LD.
    Here's UKIP's news in Pompey South:
    http://www.portsmouth.co.uk/news/local/turmoil-for-ukip-as-members-quit-over-criminal-past-of-portsmouth-south-chairman-1-6546271
    £30,000+
    Certainly worth his while standing from a financial viewpoint. He won't put much effort in.
  • IndigoIndigo Posts: 9,966
    edited March 2015

    Pulpstar said:

    isam said:

    Peter Hitchen's dislike of Cameron is such that he is considering voting Labour!

    Also includes Cameron's house that we helped pay for, and Dave wiping his nose on his hand while preparing dinner (I agree that if Ed had done so, it would have been all over the media)

    http://hitchensblog.mailonsunday.co.uk/

    He's right about the media, I've never seen it so utterly sycophantic and toadying in all my days.

    Edit: Except for Blair, but then I never liked or voted for that creep anyway.
    My suspicion is that Leveson is responsible for a lot of the hostility to Miliband.
    Really? It was Cameron who wanted the Royal Charter solution and that was attacked by the likes of the Spectator and the rest of the press.
    The press want weak government so they can get away with their own excesses.
    I suspect they might want to be free. The Royal Charter solution was a disgrace, but not as disgraceful as Labour's solution. In a functioning democracy a rude, disrespectful, prying press is essential to keep politicians (and more importantly in some respects, officials) honest. If the either parties ideas had been followed full none of the Cash for Questions, Cash for Access, Cash for Votes etc scandals, and certainly not the parliamentary expenses scandal would have been uncovered. The politicians don't like the scrutiny, hard luck, they are servants of the electorate that need an aggressive press to keep them honest. If anything I would argue our press is far to supine and lazy, the level of quality investigative journalism these days is pitiful.

    The UK is in dire need of a written constitution guaranteeing certain basic rights that meddling politicians and judges cannot abrogate, not least the freedom of speech and the freedom of the press, rights to due process, protection from unlawful search and seizure etc.
  • Edin_RokzEdin_Rokz Posts: 516
    malcolmg said:

    Edin_Rokz said:

    malcolmg said:

    Backpeddling now, you inadvertantly printed the truth. massive robbery took place and now the pygmy's down south wail about inequality whilst their pockets are stuffed with our money, you could not make it up.

    What about RBS and HBOS?
    Those London run UK banks, and your point is?
    They are either London run, so on independence you lose all those jobs, or they are Edinburgh based and you take all the liabilities.

    Yawn, you can keep Halifax and Nat West etc, ie the 90% of the crap that is not Scottish.



    And RBS, Lloyds, Prudential, Aviva, Clydesdale/Yorkshire and rumours have it that recently Standard Life may have been looking at Newcastle for their potential HQ. Then look at all the Corporate Legal activity, very little in Scotland mostly all in London showing how important Scotland is not in the big name plate companies plans.

    So no Scottish Banks, very little major service providers HO's, all major companies name plated in London or off shore, and specifically paying taxes and probably employing people elsewhere.

    Watched an interesting programme the other day on Keillers Marmalade. Seems that to avoid paying UK taxes at one time, they set up a large subsidiary factory in Jersey. Then cut and run from there when the laws were changed again.

    Do you really think business owners will want to stay in a Scotland with a problematical future?

    You really are a typical Labour supporter. Why would only Scotland in the world not be able to keep businesses. What could be so incredibly different in an independent Scotland to make it so different from any other country in the world. Are you really as stupid as your post suggests.

    Er! Sorry, not a typical labour supporter, just some one who dislikes the hyperbole of the Nats and the general incompetence of the party and who believes that the lies and distortion of the truth reflects badly on the people of Scotland.
  • Scott_PScott_P Posts: 51,453
    Get 'em while you still can...

    @StrongerInNos: @faisalislam Update on this ... http://t.co/DLzxWYnSIW
  • EPGEPG Posts: 6,653
    Good afternoon (feels like morning due to missing hour)

    Five per cent of the British public watched, perhaps, but I suppose the debates will have attracted disproportionately GB electors as viewers. I doubt many five-year olds were tuned in, nor Polish migrant workers, in relative terms.

    As for the Atlas Shrugged theory, democracies are perfectly capable of organising self-sacrifice in crisis times - see most of the peripheral Eurozone countries - but Britain doesn't feel like it's in crisis. I think the stronger narrative is that things are going quite well for the population as a whole, but quite badly for ordinary people, whomever they are. That means things must be going REALLY well for the well-off, which isn't completely untrue if you look at the direction of asset prices and taxes. Unless some change since the crisis has made people more tolerant of inequality, which seems unlikely, this should lead to a democratic self-correction towards the previous preference of redistribution. Self-sacrifice is fine to save a country, but when the beneficiaries look like bankers, bosses and foreign oligarchs, people naturally recoil from the offer.
  • malcolmgmalcolmg Posts: 43,500
    HYUFD said:

    MalcG Fred Goodwin was a Scot if I recall

    and your point is, Carney is Canadian , dos that mean if Canada was independent it would be a basket case
  • TheuniondivvieTheuniondivvie Posts: 42,160
    Edin_Rokz said:


    Er! Sorry, not a typical labour supporter, just some one who dislikes the hyperbole of the Nats and the general incompetence of the party and who believes that the lies and distortion of the truth reflects badly on the people of Scotland.

    So, a typical SLab supporter then, including being too ashamed to admit it.
  • malcolmgmalcolmg Posts: 43,500

    malcolmg said:

    malcolmg said:

    malcolmg said:

    malcolmg said:

    malcolmg said:

    Dair said:

    Looks as though all historic posts under disqUS have been lost. Cannae find the EIU evidence that showed Scotland's fiscal deficit (1980 thro' 2008?) despite "oil, whiskey and whinging".

    Can anyone find the link to the t'Economist article please...?

    It's been tallied. Since 1980 Scotland paid £222bn to the UK it didn't get back. The UK also borrowed around £1200bn in debt Scotland did not need and asked Scotland to pay debt interest.
    Link?
    Ms Vance:

    Note that the subject is "UK" not "England". A lesson learned me-thinks....
    Since Mr Dair is so Coy I've done a bit of digging.

    If we make Scotland retrospectively Independent to 1980 then the figures add up ('geographical share of oil'), but then they wouldn't have had Mrs Thatcher either - so where are the assumptions to end?

    https://fullfact.org/factchecks/does_scotland_contribute_more_in_taxes_than_rest_of_uk-34755
    Is that your way of saying he was telling the truth
    No - it was an illustration of the fatuity of the assumption upon which his claim is based.....
    Backpeddling now, you inadvertantly printed the truth. massive robbery took place and now the pygmy's down south wail about inequality whilst their pockets are stuffed with our money, you could not make it up.
    What about RBS and HBOS?
    Those London run UK banks, and your point is?
    They are either London run, so on independence you lose all those jobs, or they are Edinburgh based and you take all the liabilities.
    Yawn, you can keep Halifax and Nat West etc, ie the 90% of the crap that is not Scottish.
    Blimey, you lot really do want your cake and eat it.

    I couldn't care less mind you and look forward to the day when you piss off.
    what a sour bitter twisted little englander turnip. Go bother someone who cares.
    Resort to abuse, nice Scottish trait.
    Not very bright are you
  • SmarmeronSmarmeron Posts: 5,099
    @Theuniondivvie
    What does a "typical" SLab voter look like?
  • malcolmgmalcolmg Posts: 43,500


    Resort to abuse, nice Scottish trait.

    look forward to the day when you piss off.

    Another one for the PB Hypocrite collection. That bag's bulgin'!
    i meant Scotland, not malcolm
    nigel, stop digging , now you are hurling insults at a whole country , that is very very silly
  • malcolmgmalcolmg Posts: 43,500

    Pulpstar said:

    50p rate coming back from the SNP - that'll cost them votes in London and the South Eas.. OH WAIT

    I think we are seeing a change under Sturgeon from what we saw with Salmond. Under Salmond the model was always "bang on about austerity and inequality, but never actually advocate progressive tax rises because we want business/the middle class onside". A lot of the key pledges in the run up to the referendum were actually for tax cuts/freezes - reduce corporation tax, abolish air passenger duty, resist the 50p tax rate, freeze the Council Tax, etc. Of course we've also seen them advocating huge tax breaks for the oil industry recently.

    Sturgeon has already got rid of the corporation tax pledge and backed the 50p tax rate. There's also a pretty clear difference in how Sturgeon is trying to woo over English Labour voters while Salmond seems intent on baiting them and stirring up English nationalism. Whether that's going to be successful for her long-term is a different question - my instinct is that even though Salmond's campaigning was completely dishonest (arguing that we could raise public spending and cut taxes while also cutting borrowing) it was still wildly successful from an electoral perspective.
    She is losing the plot, anti - democratic all female lists , higher tax , appreciate it si to attract the Labour knuckle draggers but long term it is toxic.
  • IndigoIndigo Posts: 9,966
    EPG said:

    As for the Atlas Shrugged theory, democracies are perfectly capable of organising self-sacrifice in crisis times - see most of the peripheral Eurozone countries - but Britain doesn't feel like it's in crisis. I think the stronger narrative is that things are going quite well for the population as a whole, but quite badly for ordinary people, whomever they are. That means things must be going REALLY well for the well-off, which isn't completely untrue if you look at the direction of asset prices and taxes. Unless some change since the crisis has made people more tolerant of inequality, which seems unlikely, this should lead to a democratic self-correction towards the previous preference of redistribution. Self-sacrifice is fine to save a country, but when the beneficiaries look like bankers, bosses and foreign oligarchs, people naturally recoil from the offer.

    Its a tricky one. It may well be going well or even very well for the rich, but their capital as needed to make it even acceptable for the ordinary people, the government doesn't make wealth, it just moves it around. If other countries offer those oligarchs better return on their investment with an acceptable risk profile they will move their capital there like a shot.

    So we have the awkward position of trying to get people to come here to do business and invest their capital, when our populations skills are pretty third rate as a whole, and our productivity is atrocious, which we largely do because our low taxes and light regulations means they can make big fat piles of money. If we start to increase those taxes and impose more regulations, they are likely to shift their capital to other locations where productivity is higher to offset the slightly less understanding regime.
  • malcolmgmalcolmg Posts: 43,500

    The argument down thread about Scottish economy since 1980 is risible. The usual rubbish from the Scottish Nat cheerleaders.
    With independent Scotland from 1980 there would be no Gordon Brown ruining the UK economy and probably no Tony Blair as well. No Scottish Lab MPs propping up a Labour majority.
    As such we would have had well run and well regulated English banks run from London not Edinburgh.

    Yet despite getting your just desserts you were still desperate to hang on to us , offering bribes right left and centre. We wonder why.
  • GIN1138GIN1138 Posts: 22,387
    I see Cameron is going to visit the Queen tomorrow - I thought the fixed term parliament meant there was no need for Cameron to seek the Queens approval to dissolve Parliament?

    Perhaps just going with tradition and as a courtesy to Her Maj?
  • HYUFDHYUFD Posts: 123,955
    Scotslass Not true at all, after all 55% of Scots voted for the union and could vote for Unionist Parties, if the SNP are on 43-45% 99% of those voters come from the 45% who voted for independence. In Quebec the Liberals only started challenging the Parti Quebecois and Bloc Quebecois again once the conservative Union Nationale vote shifted to it, including that of its leader Rodrigue Biron. At the federal level too Tory voters did the same and indeed Jean Charest, a former Federal Progressive Conservative leader, eventually became leader of the Quebec Liberal Party
  • malcolmgmalcolmg Posts: 43,500
    Edin_Rokz said:

    malcolmg said:

    Edin_Rokz said:

    malcolmg said:

    Backpeddling now, you inadvertantly printed the truth. massive robbery took place and now the pygmy's down south wail about inequality whilst their pockets are stuffed with our money, you could not make it up.

    What about RBS and HBOS?
    Those London run UK banks, and your point is?
    They are either London run, so on independence you lose all those jobs, or they are Edinburgh based and you take all the liabilities.
    Yawn, you can keep Halifax and Nat West etc, ie the 90% of the crap that is not Scottish.



    And RBS, Lloyds, Prudential, Aviva, Clydesdale/Yorkshire and rumours have it that recently Standard Life may have been looking at Newcastle for their potential HQ. Then look at all the Corporate Legal activity, very little in Scotland mostly all in London showing how important Scotland is not in the big name plate companies plans.

    So no Scottish Banks, very little major service providers HO's, all major companies name plated in London or off shore, and specifically paying taxes and probably employing people elsewhere.

    Watched an interesting programme the other day on Keillers Marmalade. Seems that to avoid paying UK taxes at one time, they set up a large subsidiary factory in Jersey. Then cut and run from there when the laws were changed again.

    Do you really think business owners will want to stay in a Scotland with a problematical future?

    You really are a typical Labour supporter. Why would only Scotland in the world not be able to keep businesses. What could be so incredibly different in an independent Scotland to make it so different from any other country in the world. Are you really as stupid as your post suggests.

    Er! Sorry, not a typical labour supporter, just some one who dislikes the hyperbole of the Nats and the general incompetence of the party and who believes that the lies and distortion of the truth reflects badly on the people of Scotland.

    compared to the alternatives they are titans , even if in reality they are just pygmies. Supporting Labour you should be a world expert on liars and incompetence.
  • malcolmgmalcolmg Posts: 43,500
    Smarmeron said:

    @Theuniondivvie
    What does a "typical" SLab voter look like?

    Vacant , unable to tell a donkey's arse from its head. Believes every lie and untruth spouted by the donkeys that are labour.
  • at least I'm feeling better about that cover bet of £600 most seats for Lab at 3.109...
  • NickPalmerNickPalmer Posts: 21,568
    GIN1138 said:

    I see Cameron is going to visit the Queen tomorrow - I thought the fixed term parliament meant there was no need for Cameron to seek the Queens approval to dissolve Parliament?

    Perhaps just going with tradition and as a courtesy to Her Maj?

    Yes, and possibly the potential media coverage is not altogether absent from his thoughts...
  • rottenboroughrottenborough Posts: 63,137
    GIN1138 said:

    I see Cameron is going to visit the Queen tomorrow - I thought the fixed term parliament meant there was no need for Cameron to seek the Queens approval to dissolve Parliament?

    Perhaps just going with tradition and as a courtesy to Her Maj?

    Clearly it's a courtesy. But also fantastic PR opportunity, showing him as PM, doing PM-type things.
  • SmarmeronSmarmeron Posts: 5,099
    @malcolmg
    Thanks, now I know what to look for.
  • TheuniondivvieTheuniondivvie Posts: 42,160
    Smarmeron said:

    @Theuniondivvie
    What does a "typical" SLab voter look like?

    Don't know what they "look" like, but they "sound" like Edin_Rokz, ill informed and consumed with expressing their hatred for the SNP in order to avoid talking about the vacuity of their own party (Scotch sub-branch).
  • SmarmeronSmarmeron Posts: 5,099
    @Theuniondivvie
    "Knuckle draggers" whose vote can be bought with a few simple promises?
  • FrankBoothFrankBooth Posts: 9,928
    indigo - One might think we should try and do something about those skills and productivity. Instead you're happy for us to behave like some kind of global harlot.
  • malcolmgmalcolmg Posts: 43,500
    Smarmeron said:

    @malcolmg
    Thanks, now I know what to look for.

    You will spot them easily
  • ydoethurydoethur Posts: 71,769
    edited March 2015
    EPG said:

    Good afternoon (feels like morning due to missing hour)

    AI think the stronger narrative is that things are going quite well for the population as a whole, but quite badly for ordinary people, whomever they are. That means things must be going REALLY well for the well-off, which isn't completely untrue if you look at the direction of asset prices and taxes.

    Speaking purely for myself, I found times very tough under Labour but have done very well under the Coalition. In 2007 I lost my job due to the slump and drastic, although not advertised, cuts in Higher Education, and had three and a half years struggling by on temping and a bit of freelancing, never quite sure where the next job (and on one particularly bad occasion, the next meal) was coming from. In 2011 I got a job again thanks to the changes in university admission regulations. In 2012 I was able to apply for teacher training on very generous terms indeed - notwithstanding the headline figure of tuition fees, my grants totalled in excess of £13,000 and about the same in low-interest, income contingent loans - and I am now earning decent money as a Head of Department.

    Now I wonder - how typical is my experience? Perhaps not very. It's unusual, for example, for NQTs to be promoted so rapidly (and in my case, believe me, it was due to a series of flukes and not to any sort of personal brilliance). But the fact is that only one of my graduate group entered regular employment in 2008, but in the last 24 months we have all found reasonably permanent work. That's something that's definitely worth reflecting on.

    I have sometimes wondered whether what we have is actually a recovery that is helping ordinary people, but is leaving behind several vocal minorities who describe themselves as 'ordinary' people - e.g. the disabled, public sector workers, etc. As they are better organised and more willing to push themselves forward, they tend to get more coverage - after all, people don't write to newspapers to say that life's now going along pretty comfortably compared to 7 years ago, thank you. And meanwhile, of course, the banking industry has hired the worst public relations advisers in the history of economics, just to make sure everyone continues to hate them as their excesses are casually splashed across every newspaper.

    Not sure that any of this will make any meaningful difference to the result - but if you consider how many private sector workers had to have massive cuts in hours from 2007-2009, and how factories are now edging back up towards full capacity, it does make you wonder about the official Labour version of a 'cost of living crisis'.
  • edmundintokyoedmundintokyo Posts: 17,708
    EPG said:


    As for the Atlas Shrugged theory, democracies are perfectly capable of organising self-sacrifice in crisis times - see most of the peripheral Eurozone countries - but Britain doesn't feel like it's in crisis. I think the stronger narrative is that things are going quite well for the population as a whole, but quite badly for ordinary people, whomever they are. That means things must be going REALLY well for the well-off, which isn't completely untrue if you look at the direction of asset prices and taxes. Unless some change since the crisis has made people more tolerant of inequality, which seems unlikely, this should lead to a democratic self-correction towards the previous preference of redistribution. Self-sacrifice is fine to save a country, but when the beneficiaries look like bankers, bosses and foreign oligarchs, people naturally recoil from the offer.

    Yup, it's notable how well the government were taking the voters with them with their initial "firm but fair, all in it together" austerity theme for the year or so that they actually stuck to it.
  • IndigoIndigo Posts: 9,966
    edited March 2015
    Smarmeron said:

    @Theuniondivvie
    "Knuckle draggers" whose vote can be bought with a few simple promises?

    Such a Parcel of Rogues in a Nation.
  • HYUFDHYUFD Posts: 123,955
    ISAM As I have frequently told Peter Hitchens he agrees with UKIP on most issues, whether the EU, immigration, grammar schools and the family etc. However, if he cannot be bothered to register to vote for 30 years, as he says, something people have died for, then really we should not take his highly paid ramblings quite so seriously.
  • malcolmgmalcolmg Posts: 43,500
    ydoethur said:

    EPG said:

    Good afternoon (feels like morning due to missing hour)

    AI think the stronger narrative is that things are going quite well for the population as a whole, but quite badly for ordinary people, whomever they are. That means things must be going REALLY well for the well-off, which isn't completely untrue if you look at the direction of asset prices and taxes.

    Speaking purely for myself, I found times very tough under Labour but have done very well under the Coalition. In 2007 I lost my job due to the slump and drastic, although not advertised, cuts in Higher Education, and had three and a half years struggling by on temping and a bit of freelancing, never quite sure where the next job (and on one particularly bad occasion, the next meal) was coming from. In 2011 I got a job again thanks to the changes in university admission regulations. In 2012 I was able to apply for teacher training on very generous terms indeed - notwithstanding the headline figure of tuition fees, my grants totalled in excess of £13,000 and about the same in low-interest, income contingent loans - and I am now earning decent money as a Head of Department.

    Now I wonder - how typical is my experience? Perhaps not very. It's unusual, for example, for NQTs to be promoted so rapidly (and in my case, believe me, it was due to a series of flukes and not to any sort of personal brilliance). But the fact is that only one of my graduate group entered regular employment in 2008, but in the last 24 months we have all found reasonably permanent work. That's something that's definitely worth reflecting on.

    I have sometimes wondered whether what we have is actually a recovery that is helping ordinary people, but is leaving behind several vocal minorities who describe themselves as 'ordinary' people - e.g. the disabled, public sector workers, etc. As they are better organised and more willing to push themselves forward, they tend to get more coverage - after all, people don't write to newspapers to say that life's now going along pretty comfortably compared to 7 years ago, thank you. And meanwhile, of course, the banking industry has hired the worst public relations advisers in the history of economics, just to make sure everyone continues to hate them as their excesses are casually splashed across every newspaper.

    Not sure that any of this will make any meaningful difference to the result - but if you consider how many private sector workers had to have massive cuts in hours from 2007-2009, and how factories are now edging back up towards full capacity, it does make you wonder about the official Labour version of a 'cost of living crisis'.
    You have done very well but few will have went from unemployed/doing teacher training/head of department in a couple of years.
  • JohnLilburneJohnLilburne Posts: 6,313

    GIN1138 said:

    I see Cameron is going to visit the Queen tomorrow - I thought the fixed term parliament meant there was no need for Cameron to seek the Queens approval to dissolve Parliament?

    Perhaps just going with tradition and as a courtesy to Her Maj?

    Yes, and possibly the potential media coverage is not altogether absent from his thoughts...
    There was no need to do so last time either. Brown could have just let parliament expire under the Septennial Act (as amended).

  • malcolmgmalcolmg Posts: 43,500
    Indigo said:

    Smarmeron said:

    @Theuniondivvie
    "Knuckle draggers" whose vote can be bought with a few simple promises?

    Such a Parcel of Rogues in a Nation.
    Place is half full of them as we saw in recent vote.
  • TheuniondivvieTheuniondivvie Posts: 42,160
    Smarmeron said:

    @Theuniondivvie
    "Knuckle draggers" whose vote can be bought with a few simple promises?

    Hmm, not a phrase I would ever use. In any case, you're conflating the party with voters, a very SLab trait if I may say so.
  • IndigoIndigo Posts: 9,966

    EPG said:


    As for the Atlas Shrugged theory, democracies are perfectly capable of organising self-sacrifice in crisis times - see most of the peripheral Eurozone countries - but Britain doesn't feel like it's in crisis. I think the stronger narrative is that things are going quite well for the population as a whole, but quite badly for ordinary people, whomever they are. That means things must be going REALLY well for the well-off, which isn't completely untrue if you look at the direction of asset prices and taxes. Unless some change since the crisis has made people more tolerant of inequality, which seems unlikely, this should lead to a democratic self-correction towards the previous preference of redistribution. Self-sacrifice is fine to save a country, but when the beneficiaries look like bankers, bosses and foreign oligarchs, people naturally recoil from the offer.

    Yup, it's notable how well the government were taking the voters with them with their initial "firm but fair, all in it together" austerity theme for the year or so that they actually stuck to it.
    True, but not the whole story, Labour were totally ineffectual for at least the two years, possibly the first three years as they continued with their "do nothing and wait for the election to fall in our lap" policy, and tried to work out that they were going to do with EdM. Its only when they woke up in the last year and started furiously waving their shrouds whilst promising free owls for all that people started to complain.
  • ydoethurydoethur Posts: 71,769
    HYUFD said:

    ISAM As I have frequently told Peter Hitchens he agrees with UKIP on most issues, whether the EU, immigration, grammar schools and the family etc. However, if he cannot be bothered to register to vote for 30 years, as he says, something people have died for, then really we should not take his highly paid ramblings quite so seriously.

    Why does anything take anything a Hitchens says seriously? Christopher was completely crazy - he thought facts were an inconvenience that true journalists ignored (cf David Irving case, where Hitchens repeatedly attacked Deborah Lipstadt for stifling Irving's right to free speech by er, defending herself against a vexatious libel action launched by Irving) - and Peter doesn't have even a tenth of Christopher's literary talent.
  • CharlesCharles Posts: 35,758
    Indigo said:

    New Lib Dem BME strategy?

    Michael Crick ✔ @MichaelLCrick
    Lauren Keith picked as Lib Dem candidate for Brent Central, so party has 6 women, but no BME cands, it seems, in its 10 retirement seats

    They should have a secret A list like Dave, diverse in every possibly way except for them all being metropolitan liberals.
    That was a garbage article in the Spectator. I happen to know about one the candidates (don't know him personally) on their list - my Mum chaired the primary as a non-Conservative (and therefore) senior local.

    His parent's have lived in the constituency since they came to the UK, his Dad served as a magistrate for many years, he is a local councilor. But he is an Asian (Sri Lankan?) and a lawyer (I think). And therefore he must be a "secret A lister" foisted on the local party by some shadowy people in central office
  • ydoethurydoethur Posts: 71,769
    malcolmg said:


    You have done very well but few will have went from unemployed/doing teacher training/head of department in a couple of years.

    Agreed, Malcolmg, which is why I qualified it by pointing out that it is actually analogous to what happened to some of my fellow graduates. Again, however, it could be very fairly pointed out that the experiences of a bunch of postgraduates from a mid-ranking university are not themselves typical.

    If anyone has any contrasting experiences, even bearing in mind the plural of anecdote is not data, I'd be interested to hear them as well.
  • QuincelQuincel Posts: 4,042
    Indigo said:

    New Lib Dem BME strategy?

    Michael Crick ✔ @MichaelLCrick
    Lauren Keith picked as Lib Dem candidate for Brent Central, so party has 6 women, but no BME cands, it seems, in its 10 retirement seats

    They should have a secret A list like Dave, diverse in every possibly way except for them all being metropolitan liberals.
    They do. I thought it wasn't a secret.
  • BarnesianBarnesian Posts: 8,680
    I've been studying the detail of the last night's YouGov poll.

    There seems to be a big difference between the voting intentions of those who said they voted in 2010 and those who said they didn't.

    The share of the 1300 who said they voted in 2010 is Con 34.4%, Lab 36.7% i.e. a 2.3% gap - not 4%.

    This means that the share of the 500 who said they didn't vote in 2010 is Con 25.6% and Lab 34.2% i.e. a gap of 8.6%. These 500 also gave much larger shares to UKIP, Green and SNP but not LD.

    I'm assuming the 500 consist of young voters coming onto the register for the first time -possibly 200 of them - and the other 300 are people energised to vote this time but not last time.

    I suspect these 500 are much less likely to vote than those who voted last time. This means that the UKIP and Green shares are likely to be overstated and Con and LD understated.
  • malcolmgmalcolmg Posts: 43,500
    ydoethur said:

    malcolmg said:


    You have done very well but few will have went from unemployed/doing teacher training/head of department in a couple of years.

    Agreed, Malcolmg, which is why I qualified it by pointing out that it is actually analogous to what happened to some of my fellow graduates. Again, however, it could be very fairly pointed out that the experiences of a bunch of postgraduates from a mid-ranking university are not themselves typical.

    If anyone has any contrasting experiences, even bearing in mind the plural of anecdote is not data, I'd be interested to hear them as well.
    Good for you though, hard work pays off. Just a pity we have so many people with so little ambition , gumption and self respect who would rather whinge and moan than actually do something about. If two million immigrants can come here and get jobs it is inconceivable how we can manage to have unemployment in local population.
  • edmundintokyoedmundintokyo Posts: 17,708
    Indigo said:

    EPG said:


    As for the Atlas Shrugged theory, democracies are perfectly capable of organising self-sacrifice in crisis times - see most of the peripheral Eurozone countries - but Britain doesn't feel like it's in crisis. I think the stronger narrative is that things are going quite well for the population as a whole, but quite badly for ordinary people, whomever they are. That means things must be going REALLY well for the well-off, which isn't completely untrue if you look at the direction of asset prices and taxes. Unless some change since the crisis has made people more tolerant of inequality, which seems unlikely, this should lead to a democratic self-correction towards the previous preference of redistribution. Self-sacrifice is fine to save a country, but when the beneficiaries look like bankers, bosses and foreign oligarchs, people naturally recoil from the offer.

    Yup, it's notable how well the government were taking the voters with them with their initial "firm but fair, all in it together" austerity theme for the year or so that they actually stuck to it.
    True, but not the whole story, Labour were totally ineffectual for at least the two years, possibly the first three years as they continued with their "do nothing and wait for the election to fall in our lap" policy, and tried to work out that they were going to do with EdM. Its only when they woke up in the last year and started furiously waving their shrouds whilst promising free owls for all that people started to complain.
    I don't think that works - the visible point where the austerity narrative blew up was the budget where Osborne cut the top rate of tax, only to be smothered by a deluge of moaning about pasties. The opposition there was led by Greggs, not Labour.

    I can understand why they did it, but they could have kept more support for longer if they hadn't. The problem is that austerity is quite a politically rigorous message to stay on, when every Chancellor would like to be rewarding their supporters and making populist gestures like cheaper beer or whatever.
  • IndigoIndigo Posts: 9,966
    ydoethur said:

    HYUFD said:

    ISAM As I have frequently told Peter Hitchens he agrees with UKIP on most issues, whether the EU, immigration, grammar schools and the family etc. However, if he cannot be bothered to register to vote for 30 years, as he says, something people have died for, then really we should not take his highly paid ramblings quite so seriously.

    Why does anything take anything a Hitchens says seriously? Christopher was completely crazy - he thought facts were an inconvenience that true journalists ignored (cf David Irving case, where Hitchens repeatedly attacked Deborah Lipstadt for stifling Irving's right to free speech by er, defending herself against a vexatious libel action launched by Irving) - and Peter doesn't have even a tenth of Christopher's literary talent.
    True, and Christopher was a force of nature, watching him in mid-rant, absolutely quivering with indignation and contempt for his opponent was a sight to behold. Peter, less so.
  • Stark_DawningStark_Dawning Posts: 9,714
    The Milibounce reinforces what I've said about political opinion polls since the Cleggasm. They're bunk. They're a mechanism for Zeitgeist commentary. Their relevance to voting intention is zero.
  • CharlesCharles Posts: 35,758
    Barnesian said:

    I've been studying the detail of the last night's YouGov poll.

    There seems to be a big difference between the voting intentions of those who said they voted in 2010 and those who said they didn't.

    The share of the 1300 who said they voted in 2010 is Con 34.4%, Lab 36.7% i.e. a 2.3% gap - not 4%.

    This means that the share of the 500 who said they didn't vote in 2010 is Con 25.6% and Lab 34.2% i.e. a gap of 8.6%. These 500 also gave much larger shares to UKIP, Green and SNP but not LD.

    I'm assuming the 500 consist of young voters coming onto the register for the first time -possibly 200 of them - and the other 300 are people energised to vote this time but not last time.

    I suspect these 500 are much less likely to vote than those who voted last time. This means that the UKIP and Green shares are likely to be overstated and Con and LD understated.

    Someone downthread suggested there had been a very significant swing in Southern pensioners, while the other subsamples were broadly similar - and therefore thought that it was just an unusually left wing group of regional OAPs. Do you have a view?
  • IndigoIndigo Posts: 9,966
    malcolmg said:

    Indigo said:

    Smarmeron said:

    @Theuniondivvie
    "Knuckle draggers" whose vote can be bought with a few simple promises?

    Such a Parcel of Rogues in a Nation.
    Place is half full of them as we saw in recent vote.
    "We're bought and sold for English gold-"
  • EPGEPG Posts: 6,653
    ydoethur said:

    EPG said:

    Good afternoon (feels like morning due to missing hour)

    AI think the stronger narrative is that things are going quite well for the population as a whole, but quite badly for ordinary people, whomever they are. That means things must be going REALLY well for the well-off, which isn't completely untrue if you look at the direction of asset prices and taxes.

    I have sometimes wondered whether what we have is actually a recovery that is helping ordinary people, but is leaving behind several vocal minorities who describe themselves as 'ordinary' people
    I think you are correct. Price growth has been low, unemployment has fallen and most of the new jobs may not be brilliant but aren't zero-hours hell.

    One very compelling theory I've heard, and it's not my own but I don't know whom to credit: The media and news is perhaps the sector that has suffered the most due to the mix of crisis, new technology and changes in consumer tastes. So, naturally, media people are biased into thinking that the economy is doing miserably, and open to attacking anyone who looks like they're doing well at the newsman's expense.

    This has a big impact on the prevailing narrative. But I also don't underestimate the usual desire to redistribute wealth, and the direction of property prices, equity prices, even European government bond prices, since 2010. The most compelling facts to me are that Osborne cut the top rate to 45 per cent in 2012, government support collapsed, and they spent the subsequent 24 months trying to get back to where they once were in the eyes of the public.
  • FrancisUrquhartFrancisUrquhart Posts: 82,533
    As polling day looms, Labour is thinking about life after Ed Miliband

    Labour is not acting much like a party that expects to win the election. It is focused on who will replace its leader

    http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/politics/labour/11501236/As-polling-day-looms-Labour-is-thinking-about-life-after-Ed-Miliband.html

    Out of date article already?
  • SouthamObserverSouthamObserver Posts: 39,672
    Everyone seems to have got a bit over-excited about one poll. MOE, rather than any post-Thursday Labour boost, seems to be the best explanation for the result. It still looks nip and tuck to me, with the Tories my favourites to win most seats nationally because their vote is more energised than Labour's and Labour is going to get one hell of a kicking in Scotland.
  • ArtistArtist Posts: 1,893
    edited March 2015
    I wonder if an improvement in Labour's position could see a possible coalition with the Lib Dems come into play. Labour would probably need to get 290 seats+ for it to be possible, with the SDLP thrown in as well. There's not much love lost between the parties but it'd possibly be a more appealing alternative than five years of vote by vote with the SNP.
  • PulpstarPulpstar Posts: 78,415
    Artist said:

    I wonder if an improvement in Labour's position could see a possible coalition with the Lib Dems come into play. Labour would probably need to get 290 seats+ for it to be possible, with the SNP thrown in as well. There's not much love lost between the parties but it'd possibly be a more appealing alternative than five years of vote by vote with the SNP.

    Doubt it but I've covered it in the betting.
  • ydoethurydoethur Posts: 71,769
    EPG said:

    The most compelling facts to me are that Osborne cut the top rate to 45 per cent in 2012, government support collapsed, and they spent the subsequent 24 months trying to get back to where they once were in the eyes of the public.

    That was a genuinely stupid decision. Either it was raising money, or it wasn't. If it was, it should have been left in place. If it wasn't, it should have been abolished altogether. Like most compromises, Osborne's was a mess that ended up angering everybody for no good reason. His inept having-it-all-ways attempts to defend it were if anything even more cretinous.

    Despite his relentless self-publicism since, it has surely ruined his chances of being PM (if not necessarily those of replacing Cameron).
  • ydoethurydoethur Posts: 71,769
    edited March 2015
    malcolmg said:


    Good for you though, hard work pays off.

    THank you MalcolmG, I appreciate the compliment. However, I must admit I did, around 2009, go through a big whinge at life in general - I snapped out of it when it dawned on me that I could (a) keep whinging and waste my life or (b) actually do something about it and show just because things weren't easy didn't mean I was going to give up. So while I get impatient with people who never stop moaning, I am acutely aware of how easy it is to start.
  • SouthamObserverSouthamObserver Posts: 39,672

    As polling day looms, Labour is thinking about life after Ed Miliband

    Labour is not acting much like a party that expects to win the election. It is focused on who will replace its leader

    http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/politics/labour/11501236/As-polling-day-looms-Labour-is-thinking-about-life-after-Ed-Miliband.html

    Out of date article already?

    Another Dan Jarvis call. Life would get very tricky for the Tories if he were in charge of Labour.

  • MarkHopkinsMarkHopkins Posts: 5,584
    edited March 2015
    ydoethur said:

    EPG said:

    The most compelling facts to me are that Osborne cut the top rate to 45 per cent in 2012, government support collapsed, and they spent the subsequent 24 months trying to get back to where they once were in the eyes of the public.

    That was a genuinely stupid decision. Either it was raising money, or it wasn't. If it was, it should have been left in place. If it wasn't, it should have been abolished altogether. Like most compromises, Osborne's was a mess that ended up angering everybody for no good reason. His inept having-it-all-ways attempts to defend it were if anything even more cretinous.

    Despite his relentless self-publicism since, it has surely ruined his chances of being PM (if not necessarily those of replacing Cameron).

    I thought that Osborne wanted to scrap the 50% rate (as the best solution), but the LDs weren't going to allow that, hence the compromise?

    Which, as you say, looked stupid.

  • CharlesCharles Posts: 35,758
    ydoethur said:

    EPG said:

    The most compelling facts to me are that Osborne cut the top rate to 45 per cent in 2012, government support collapsed, and they spent the subsequent 24 months trying to get back to where they once were in the eyes of the public.

    That was a genuinely stupid decision. Either it was raising money, or it wasn't. If it was, it should have been left in place. If it wasn't, it should have been abolished altogether. Like most compromises, Osborne's was a mess that ended up angering everybody for no good reason. His inept having-it-all-ways attempts to defend it were if anything even more cretinous.

    Despite his relentless self-publicism since, it has surely ruined his chances of being PM (if not necessarily those of replacing Cameron).
    To be fair to Osborne, I believe he wanted to cut it to 40%. the LibDems wanted to keep it at 50% and Cameron split the difference.

    It was a classic case where good governance ("Britain is open for business & this tax doesn't raise much, if anything, anyway") was directly opposed to political interest ("we're all in it together"). Fortunately the Coalition went with what was right for the country and took the political pain
  • ydoethurydoethur Posts: 71,769



    I thought that Osborne wanted to scrap the 50% rate (as the best solution), but the LDs weren't going to allow that, hence the compromise?

    Which, as you say, looked stupid.

    I haven't heard it, but it doesn't surprise me. However, if he couldn't remove it altogether it would probably have been better both fiscally and politically just to leave it for a bit until he could get rid of it.
  • IndigoIndigo Posts: 9,966
    edited March 2015
    EPG said:

    The most compelling facts to me are that Osborne cut the top rate to 45 per cent in 2012, government support collapsed, and they spent the subsequent 24 months trying to get back to where they once were in the eyes of the public.

    The irony about this bit is that since the difference in tax take at 45% and 50% is the square root of nothing, the logical extension of this is that the rich were not actually paying any more tax at 50% than they are at 45%, in other words the entire effect of the tax was, or would be, avoided. So people are getting indignant at the rich paying less tax when demonstrably they are paying the same tax.

    It is fair to say that by the same reasoning Osborne could have left the band where it was, or even increased it and nothing would have changed, but what is harder to quantify is the disincentive to foreign investors that see and alarming large headline number and decide to take their money elsewhere, not realising how easy it is to sidestep, especially as a non-dom.
  • Scott_PScott_P Posts: 51,453
    @FraserNelson: Here's the car crash interview with Labour campaign chief Lucy Powell, confirming the party won't balance the books: http://t.co/FBCt80A2pC
  • Sunil_PrasannanSunil_Prasannan Posts: 52,135
    edited March 2015
    It's ELBOW time again!

    ELBOW (Electoral Leader-Board Of the Week) for week-ending 29th March. 13 polls, with total sample 20,564

    Lab 33.8% (nc)
    Con 33.6 (+0.3)
    UKIP 13.8 (-0.1)
    LD 7.9 (-0.1)
    Green 5.7 (+0.2)

    Lab lead 0.2% (-0.3)

    HIGHEST CON score since the very 1st ELBOW 10th August (33.7)!!!
    LOWEST UKIP score since 24th August


    Last four Labour leads:

    22nd March 0.5
    15th March 0.0
    8th March 0.3
    1st March 0.7
  • Luckyguy1983Luckyguy1983 Posts: 28,858
    ydoethur said:

    HYUFD said:

    ISAM As I have frequently told Peter Hitchens he agrees with UKIP on most issues, whether the EU, immigration, grammar schools and the family etc. However, if he cannot be bothered to register to vote for 30 years, as he says, something people have died for, then really we should not take his highly paid ramblings quite so seriously.

    Why does anything take anything a Hitchens says seriously? Christopher was completely crazy - he thought facts were an inconvenience that true journalists ignored (cf David Irving case, where Hitchens repeatedly attacked Deborah Lipstadt for stifling Irving's right to free speech by er, defending herself against a vexatious libel action launched by Irving) - and Peter doesn't have even a tenth of Christopher's literary talent.
    I decide what to take seriously after I've read it, not pre-decided on the basis of what someone's brother supported. To do otherwise would be utterly cretinous.
  • BarnesianBarnesian Posts: 8,680
    Charles said:

    Barnesian said:

    I've been studying the detail of the last night's YouGov poll.

    There seems to be a big difference between the voting intentions of those who said they voted in 2010 and those who said they didn't.

    The share of the 1300 who said they voted in 2010 is Con 34.4%, Lab 36.7% i.e. a 2.3% gap - not 4%.

    This means that the share of the 500 who said they didn't vote in 2010 is Con 25.6% and Lab 34.2% i.e. a gap of 8.6%. These 500 also gave much larger shares to UKIP, Green and SNP but not LD.

    I'm assuming the 500 consist of young voters coming onto the register for the first time -possibly 200 of them - and the other 300 are people energised to vote this time but not last time.

    I suspect these 500 are much less likely to vote than those who voted last time. This means that the UKIP and Green shares are likely to be overstated and Con and LD understated.

    Someone downthread suggested there had been a very significant swing in Southern pensioners, while the other subsamples were broadly similar - and therefore thought that it was just an unusually left wing group of regional OAPs. Do you have a view?
    The gap of 4% on a sample of 1800 is 72 people.

    The number of southern pensioners in the sample is about 160. So there would have to be an enormous bias to throw up an extra 72 people. Having said that, there are very large MOEs on these small subsamples.

    Someone also said that YouGov's weighting method should have corrected for any bias. I don't know enough about the details of the weighting methodology to comment.

    One can over-analyse these polls. I know. I'm guilty of it myself.

    Some analyse looking for crumbs of comfort and may see a crumb that doesn't exist.

    I analyse to finetune my model which I'm using for betting purposes. My concern is that the basic assumptions in my model may be wrong: I assume no swingback or momentum and everything is based on switching from the 2010 position ignoring new voters though I do tune the model to match with the latest average of the polls which should pick up the new voter effect.
  • EPGEPG Posts: 6,653
    Indigo said:

    EPG said:

    The most compelling facts to me are that Osborne cut the top rate to 45 per cent in 2012, government support collapsed, and they spent the subsequent 24 months trying to get back to where they once were in the eyes of the public.

    The irony about this bit is that since the difference in tax take at 45% and 50% is the square root of nothing, the logical extension of this is that the rich were not actually paying any more tax at 50% than they are at 45%, in other words the entire effect of the tax was, or would be, avoided. So people are getting indignant at the rich paying less tax when demonstrably they are paying the same tax.

    It is fair to say that by the same reasoning Osborne could have left the band where it was, or even increased it and nothing would have changed, but what is harder to quantify is the disincentive to foreign investors that see and alarming large headline number and decide to take their money elsewhere, not realising how easy it is to sidestep, especially as a non-dom.
    Yes, it's interesting. Has anyone worked out why taxes stayed the same? There are a lot of compelling arguments, and I often hear the case that it attracts more high earners, when it could just be that top incomes rose, but I don't know anything about the behaviour of this tax rate so I don't speculate.
  • HYUFDHYUFD Posts: 123,955
    Ydoethur/Indigo They are, or in Christopher's case were, both caricatures of themselves who like argument and stirring the pot for its own sake
  • ydoethurydoethur Posts: 71,769


    I decide what to take seriously after I've read it, not pre-decided on the basis of what someone's brother supported. To do otherwise would be utterly cretinous.

    Yes. And I have read the work of both of them and found it severely wanting. They both suffer from the same overwhelming arrogance and, like I said, Peter's output is not even excusable on the grounds of literary merit.
  • Sean_FSean_F Posts: 37,540

    Everyone seems to have got a bit over-excited about one poll. MOE, rather than any post-Thursday Labour boost, seems to be the best explanation for the result. It still looks nip and tuck to me, with the Tories my favourites to win most seats nationally because their vote is more energised than Labour's and Labour is going to get one hell of a kicking in Scotland.

    It seems to me they just got a sample that was more Labour than usual, and far more interested in watching the interview than the public were in general.

    I think the Tories will finish ahead of Labour in votes. Seats, I'm not so sure about.
  • Danny565Danny565 Posts: 8,091
    Oh, did Lucy Powell say Labour didn't care about cutting the deficit earlier? Put me in the 100%-cert Labour column if so.
  • RodCrosbyRodCrosby Posts: 7,737
    Kalman says....

    Lab 33.9%
    Con 33.2%
    UKIP 13.6%
    LD 7.9%
  • isamisam Posts: 41,118
    Danny565 said:

    Oh, did Lucy Powell say Labour didn't care about cutting the deficit earlier? Put me in the 100%-cert Labour column if so.

    No skin in the game as will not vote Lab or Tory, but I found her extremely obnoxious and off putting as a neutral (in the Lab-Con tittle tattle war)
  • ydoethurydoethur Posts: 71,769
    Scott_P said:

    @FraserNelson: Here's the car crash interview with Labour campaign chief Lucy Powell, confirming the party won't balance the books: http://t.co/FBCt80A2pC

    I'm just watching it and it's painful. The suggestion that cutting ministerial salaries or abolishing the Free School Programme would actually make any meaningful savings that could be used to reduce the deficit is the fiscal politics of the madhouse.

    Her manners and her grammar both leave something to be desired as well. 'You're not listening to what I'm saying...In the real world where I live, and not where you live(!)...You're not letting me say anything:' that's painful. Threatening to get rid of zero-hours contracts is a very dangerous plan as well (I did love the way Andrew Neil took her to pieces over that by providing figures that proved she was lying and how she was completely unable to deal with it, just parroting the 'You're wrong' line).

    As for complaining about tax credits, which have been a disaster from the start...

    If this is a sample of Labour's future, I look forward to seeing the SWP as the opposition in the next parliament.
  • IndigoIndigo Posts: 9,966
    EPG said:

    Indigo said:

    EPG said:

    The most compelling facts to me are that Osborne cut the top rate to 45 per cent in 2012, government support collapsed, and they spent the subsequent 24 months trying to get back to where they once were in the eyes of the public.

    The irony about this bit is that since the difference in tax take at 45% and 50% is the square root of nothing, the logical extension of this is that the rich were not actually paying any more tax at 50% than they are at 45%, in other words the entire effect of the tax was, or would be, avoided. So people are getting indignant at the rich paying less tax when demonstrably they are paying the same tax.

    It is fair to say that by the same reasoning Osborne could have left the band where it was, or even increased it and nothing would have changed, but what is harder to quantify is the disincentive to foreign investors that see and alarming large headline number and decide to take their money elsewhere, not realising how easy it is to sidestep, especially as a non-dom.
    Yes, it's interesting. Has anyone worked out why taxes stayed the same? There are a lot of compelling arguments, and I often hear the case that it attracts more high earners, when it could just be that top incomes rose, but I don't know anything about the behaviour of this tax rate so I don't speculate.
    I think that is certainly a factor. Additionally there will be number of people at the lower end of the "very rich" who hadn't bothered getting proper advise on how to mitigate their tax position before, but on seeing a new larger bill will have been motivated to go and engage an accountant. There will also be a handful of people that would have come to the country at a lower rate and paid tax that were put off by the higher rate, and another handful that decided to leave on the basis of the higher rate. The nett effect of these and similar people offset the additional money that is taken from the remainder.

    Worth remembering that someone earning a £1m salary is paying 400k in taxes. Someone on the median wage is paying 2k in taxes, so every one of the former that decides to go overseas required us to create 200 of the later.
  • Danny565Danny565 Posts: 8,091
    edited March 2015

    EPG said:


    As for the Atlas Shrugged theory, democracies are perfectly capable of organising self-sacrifice in crisis times - see most of the peripheral Eurozone countries - but Britain doesn't feel like it's in crisis. I think the stronger narrative is that things are going quite well for the population as a whole, but quite badly for ordinary people, whomever they are. That means things must be going REALLY well for the well-off, which isn't completely untrue if you look at the direction of asset prices and taxes. Unless some change since the crisis has made people more tolerant of inequality, which seems unlikely, this should lead to a democratic self-correction towards the previous preference of redistribution. Self-sacrifice is fine to save a country, but when the beneficiaries look like bankers, bosses and foreign oligarchs, people naturally recoil from the offer.

    Yup, it's notable how well the government were taking the voters with them with their initial "firm but fair, all in it together" austerity theme for the year or so that they actually stuck to it.
    I think that's part of it, but I've always thought the spectre of the Eurozone was a big factor that helped the Tories' narrative in their first couple of years. When the news was filled daily with dire warnings about how Greece, Spain, Italy etc was in the crosshairs of the markets, fear kicked in and people naturally thought that Something Must Be Done. But after the Eurozone simmered down and there didn't seem to be the same sense of crisis, people started increasingly asking "what's the big deal about having a deficit anyway?"

    Unfortunately, Labour inexplicably decided to give into austerity at just the very minute that the worm of public opinion was starting to turn, which has limited how effective they can be in the past couple of years.
  • BarnesianBarnesian Posts: 8,680
    edited March 2015
    EPG said:

    Indigo said:

    EPG said:

    The most compelling facts to me are that Osborne cut the top rate to 45 per cent in 2012, government support collapsed, and they spent the subsequent 24 months trying to get back to where they once were in the eyes of the public.

    The irony about this bit is that since the difference in tax take at 45% and 50% is the square root of nothing, the logical extension of this is that the rich were not actually paying any more tax at 50% than they are at 45%, in other words the entire effect of the tax was, or would be, avoided. So people are getting indignant at the rich paying less tax when demonstrably they are paying the same tax.

    It is fair to say that by the same reasoning Osborne could have left the band where it was, or even increased it and nothing would have changed, but what is harder to quantify is the disincentive to foreign investors that see and alarming large headline number and decide to take their money elsewhere, not realising how easy it is to sidestep, especially as a non-dom.
    Yes, it's interesting. Has anyone worked out why taxes stayed the same? There are a lot of compelling arguments, and I often hear the case that it attracts more high earners, when it could just be that top incomes rose, but I don't know anything about the behaviour of this tax rate so I don't speculate.
    I know from personal experience that some high earners brought forward their bonuses before the 50% rate kicked in and then two years later delayed receiving their bonus until the 45% rate kicked in. So bonuses were much reduced while the rate was 50% and were higher either side of it. So I think it was mainly a timing effect not a long term effect. The statistic is mis-used for ideological purposes.
  • IndigoIndigo Posts: 9,966
    ydoethur said:

    Threatening to get rid of zero-hours contracts is a very dangerous plan as well (I did love the way Andrew Neil took her to pieces over that by providing figures that proved she was lying and how she was completely unable to deal with it, just parroting the 'You're wrong' line).

    Didnt anyone tell her that a third of charity employees are on zero hours contracts, and a quarter of public sector employees likewise, both dramatically more than the private sector.

    And yet here is Ed the Muppet telling everyone that he is going to ban them http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/labour-leader-ed-miliband-explains-5420139
  • GIN1138GIN1138 Posts: 22,387

    It's ELBOW time again!

    ELBOW (Electoral Leader-Board Of the Week) for week-ending 29th March. 13 polls, with total sample 20,564

    Lab 33.8% (nc)
    Con 33.6 (+0.3)
    UKIP 13.8 (-0.1)
    LD 7.9 (-0.1)
    Green 5.7 (+0.2)

    Lab lead 0.2% (-0.3)

    HIGHEST CON score since the very 1st ELBOW 10th August (33.7)!!!
    LOWEST UKIP score since 24th August


    Last four Labour leads:

    22nd March 0.5
    15th March 0.0
    8th March 0.3
    1st March 0.7

    You can keep your ELBOW! I'm sticking with Jack's ARSE...

  • Ave_itAve_it Posts: 2,411
    I've broken my coffee mug!

    Anyone got any ideas where I could get a new one?! :lol:
  • IndigoIndigo Posts: 9,966
    edited March 2015
    Barnesian said:

    EPG said:

    Indigo said:

    EPG said:

    The most compelling facts to me are that Osborne cut the top rate to 45 per cent in 2012, government support collapsed, and they spent the subsequent 24 months trying to get back to where they once were in the eyes of the public.

    The irony about this bit is that since the difference in tax take at 45% and 50% is the square root of nothing, the logical extension of this is that the rich were not actually paying any more tax at 50% than they are at 45%, in other words the entire effect of the tax was, or would be, avoided. So people are getting indignant at the rich paying less tax when demonstrably they are paying the same tax.

    It is fair to say that by the same reasoning Osborne could have left the band where it was, or even increased it and nothing would have changed, but what is harder to quantify is the disincentive to foreign investors that see and alarming large headline number and decide to take their money elsewhere, not realising how easy it is to sidestep, especially as a non-dom.
    Yes, it's interesting. Has anyone worked out why taxes stayed the same? There are a lot of compelling arguments, and I often hear the case that it attracts more high earners, when it could just be that top incomes rose, but I don't know anything about the behaviour of this tax rate so I don't speculate.
    I know from personal experience that some high earners brought forward their bonuses before the 50% rate kicked in and then two years later delayed receiving their bonus until the 45% rate kicked in. So bonuses were much reduced while the rate was 50% and were higher either side of it. So I think it was mainly a timing effect not a long term effect. The statistic is mis-used for ideological purposes.
    People used the bringing forward because they could. Once that option was used up they would have moved on to the next form of mitigation, as well as considered other options such as relocation. We can only suppose what would have happened later as it didn't happen, but accountants are unlikely to advise their clients of a more complicated approach to saving tax while the easier option was still open to them.
  • GIN1138GIN1138 Posts: 22,387
    Ave_it said:

    I've broken my coffee mug!

    Anyone got any ideas where I could get a new one?! :lol:

    #spanners

  • ItwasriggedItwasrigged Posts: 154
    Well I didn't watch it because it is as it is totally irrelevant as to my betting intentions. I would guess and say that neither of them have the foggiest as to how they would address the fact that the UK is totally skint and getting more skint. It is also utterly irrelevant to my voting intentions as well.

    It is also the case that despite the fact that in Scotland that the BBC has been pumping out Labour Party propaganda on a daily basis that the opinion polls have barely moved. STV isn't much better. Thus they are having no effect whatever, the BBC and the Media that is. The Press is also failing big time as well it seems as with the exception of the National and Sunday Herald it is wall to wall Brit Nat propaganda of one type or another. The polls have barely moved.

    Does anybody seriously believe that Labour Party has any chance of forming any kind of Govt so soon after the disastrous Blair and Brown years? If they do then I suggest they seek help.
  • GIN1138GIN1138 Posts: 22,387
    edited March 2015
    When's Bob Sykes going to come on and cheer us all up? :smiley::smiley::smiley:
  • dr_spyndr_spyn Posts: 11,300
    edited March 2015
    Ave_it said:

    I've broken my coffee mug!

    Anyone got any ideas where I could get a new one?! :lol:

    https://shop.labour.org.uk/products/pledge-4-mug-controls-on-immigration-551/

    Just the thing for a UK Tea Party, but makes do with coffee.
This discussion has been closed.