politicalbetting.com » Blog Archive » After ICM another phone poll, Ipsos-MORI, has UKIP on 12 pe
politicalbetting.com » Blog Archive » After ICM another phone poll, Ipsos-MORI, has UKIP on 12 percent
The monthly Ipsos-MORI poll for the Evening Standard is out and sees very little change on a month ago. The firm’s UKIP share is 12% which is exactly what ICM had yesterday.
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Living standards are falling but only because we never actually earned the standard of living we gave ourselves in the years 2002-2008. Instead we boosted consumption by borrowing, equity release and unfunded government expenditure while so much capital spending was bought on the never never through PFI.
5 years on and real wages have inevitably fallen from that credit driven balloon economy. This has been hard but it has also been good news as it has massively reduced the otherwise inevitable increase in unemployment.
I agree with some of what @stodge is saying. There is a real risk for the government that this is a voteless recovery with individual families in work seeing very little benefit. I also agree with @SouthamObserver that the benefits of prior growth have been distributed very unevenly as have the hardships of the last 5 years. It is frankly bewildering that the incomes of FTSE senior management have continued to climb so fast when wages have been static for so many.
Sharing what Cameron used to call the fruits of growth will not be easy, not least because we are still running large trade and government deficits and are still living beyond our means. There is no real room for increasing consumption until we can make and sell more. Will people look at the big picture (which is getting better) or their own circumstances (which in many cases are not)? The answer to that question will, in my opinion, decide the next election.
Ed was therefore right in his approach today but the execution was poor and there were a couple of sharp blows to the kidneys which will worry Labour going forward. I suspect this is not the last time a complaint about a cut will be met with Labour's tax avoidance.
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However, voters are not completely dumb. Eradicating the deficit on the back of competitive growth rates is creating the foundations for slowly redressing the gap in living standards. Income levels will rise with productivity gains but the immediate priority is wider employment. Fiscal consolidation and multi-sector deleveraging will also eventually lead to balanced budgets and surplus revenues which can be used to improve living standards by reducing tax burdens and accelerating growth through increased investment.
Voters will have to ask themselves whether they are closer to this nirvana in 2015 than they were in 2010.
As for the economic picture remaining "weak if not stagnant", this is really not the case today in the UK.
Take the view of the markets as proof:
The U.K. currency strengthened against most of its 16 major peers as a wider measure of unemployment declined in April, providing further evidence that an economic recovery is under way.
“The pound is outperforming across the board,” said Neil Jones, head of European hedge-fund sales at Mizuho Corporate Bank Ltd. in London. “U.K. data continues to point to a recovery. Overseas investors are encouraged by the data and are buying the pound in order to purchase U.K. assets.”
We are getting there. It may be a long journey, but the destination is in sight.
They will never admit it, and this is one reason I hate them, but Labour with their incontinent borrowing and spending, their open doors and their dumbing down have royally fuc*ed the life chances of millions.
Ross Hawkins @rosschawkins
Constance Briscoe is to be charged with two counts of intending to pervert the course of justice, say CPS (PA)
The Lebo and Norpoth model gives them a 4.7% vote lead and a 16 seat lead in 2015.
Only around a 1.3% swing to Labour.
Chance of a hung parliament is a near certainty.
I don't know. I'm not Dave. If I were running the country we'd have been on a somewhat different path for the last 3 years - the last 16 in fact! But we are where we are. Both Labour and Tory leaderships need to get the Competitiveness religion.
The good news is that it probably won't stop them winning the next election with the LD2010 and UKIP dynamic favouring Labour so much.
I've never seen a single compelling argument that suggests how we might do that, however.
We've tried higher taxes, and taxes on wealth and land. The money runs offshore. We;ve tried closing loopholes. They keep finding more ones. We've tried ramping up the pressure on havens. There's always some locality somewhere prepared to offer global capital a home.
But I agree with Southam. It's a big problem and it's getting worse. And in the end, too big a cap between worker and tycoon is a recipe for instability or worse.
If this was Australia they'd be considering a leadership election.
Greece is downgraded to "emerging-market" status:
The equity index provider MSCI Inc has lowered Greece from 'developed'- to 'emerging-market' status, because the Hellenic Republic has not met size requirements for the last two years.
But will the Greeks know this? The Hellenic Broadcasting Corporation (ERT) has closed down taking the state broadcaster off the air.
And the Greeks have failed to complete the sale of state assets demanded as a condition for the latest Troika bail-out.
Gazprom, the Russian state energy company, has pulled out of a deal to buy Greece's state gas company, Depa, leaving a shortfall in government receipts.
Markets now expect the Greek government to impose further austerity measures and to need additional bailout funds just to meet existing Trioka requirements.
But we need fear nothing. As Citoyen Hollande insists: "There is no longer any crisis in the Eurozone".
Until then we will struggled to be both productive and competitive, and god help the unskilled labour, as they will have little chance, as they already have done.
By 2007 we had the worst debt ratios of almost any country in the world if you combine both public and private debt; we had a very serious trade deficit and a government who had convinced themselves that it did not matter and, cricket fan though he is, we had an incredibly smug and complacent Governor sitting in the bank kidding himself about the so called NICE decade.
Never mind our children, our grandchildren will be paying the price for that lot.
June 2010 they got 35% on ICM for the first time.
http://ukpollingreport.co.uk/voting-intention-2
Balls for leader ?
I'm no historian, but it would be interesting to look at living standards for working and middle class people in France in the second half of the 18 century and Russia in the latter part of the 19th. Were there noticeable drops? and how much richer did the very rich get?
Evidence please.
However, I agree with your broader point. For me the critical thing to achieve is that (1) regardless of family background everyone has a fairly equal shot at getting to the top and (2) people who work hard and play by the rules still get a good quality of life.
(1) means much more investment in education, trying to reverse the collapse in marriage culture among the poor, making universities take into account secondary school average grades when making offers, and clamping down on nepotism/cronyism for the good jobs and internships.
(2) means improving the quality of poor neighbourhoods through crime reduction and regeneration projects so middle class people move in and we get more mixed neighbourhoods. Limiting unskilled immigration would also be a good idea.
http://www.bankofengland.co.uk/statistics/PublishingImages/hew/2012/Dec/chart1.GIF
"In seasonally adjusted terms, the Bank’s measure of housing equity withdrawal (HEW) in 2012 Q4 was -£8.6bn (Table A). HEW as a percentage of post-tax income was -3.1% in 2012 Q4, compared to -2.9% for 2012 Q3.
The negative figure indicates a continued injection of housing equity by households overall, with the net flow of lending secured on dwellings remaining weaker than their investment in housing"
2005 this is not going to be. Looking forward to Durham though.
GDP, employment, inflation, deficit et al are all flat or going in the right direction - I can't think what is driving this unless its simply drift/a blip.
Someone living in a village in say Suffolk in the 11th century would have been very similar to someone living in the same village in the 18th century...
But I'm no historican also. Probably the wool trade and merchants etc were able to growth wealth, but then are they any different to the bankers of today (ie the 1% compared with the 99%).....
Labour 319, Tories 277, Lib Dems 27
That means a Lab-Lib pact would have a majority of just twenty. Is Miliband a strong enough leader to keep everyone in check?
It would be interesting to know how Labour's almost instantaneous post-GE poll bounce compares to how other losing governments have fared when they were kicked out of office.
This is the huge danger for your party Plato. If you (or more importantly Cameron and Osborne!) keep churning out tractor stats saying that everything is hunky dory whilst people are still feeling the pain in a big way, voters will instinctively recoil.
I'd suggest that getting on top of fusion power would be a good candidate. If we could deliver nearly free limitless electricity from deuterium then all sorts of bets would be off. Over history living standards pretty much equate to energy consumption - so not unreasonable to hope for an energy liberation to drive the next wave of growth. Let's hope this is not too far off.
If empires and civilisations can fall, then anything is possible. No doubt Romans thought the Empire would always continue, the same with the Aztecs or Incas etc.
Lets also not forget, that growth and power in the past often came from war and from the backs of some very questionable activities. We can't go conquering lands for our own benefit anymore...
adamhollioake Adam Hollioake
Footage of David Warner attacking Joe Root!!! http://t.co/YCp7WN4Bgi
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6zIYvBY2DzY&sns=tw
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/sport/cricket/international/australia/10115157/David-Warner-altercation-with-Joe-Root-sparks-reaction-from-cricket-greats-Andrew-Flintoff-and-Michael-Vaughan.html
Which is proving to be the case.
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/ccc?key=0AswNZWYSW1uvdEJNMlllenV5LXJiX3pPdUFYUF9aSEE&usp=sharing
"I had a 'phone interview by Ipsos MORI a couple of days ago. It was putatively political, but there were sneaky questions about car/'phone/house-ownership/newspaper-reading, etc. Indeed, given their format of black-white/either-or styling, those were the only questions that were rigorous. By contrast, I would not like to think that the superficial level of their political queries would influence anybody to do anything. "So I reckon my opinions might be blended into this poll's results. I still don't take it seriously. But maybe these guys read tea leaves?
Edit: Or maybe they'd do better to consult OGH?
What is happening is that they will instinctively become less certain to vote.
As tim so ably pointed out in his post upthread:
Mori Poll figures are 10/10 certain to vote.
The 5-10 certainty to vote figures are 29/36/12/12
The problem for Labour is that its traditional supporters will prefer to remain on the sofa pushing the Sky remote button rather than getting up and out to vote.
The more and more you look at it, Europe is just going to struggle. Resource light as you say.. but cost heavy, with expensive labour, and expensive social welfare systems.
We can try to keep ahead of the game in terms of education and technology, but the world is rapidly catching up and is much more lean and hungry than us. They're more flexible and have looser morals as well.
It's going to be a huge challenge, and I'm not sure were equipped with the politicans or the political structures to cope with it.
The squaring of the circle can only come through the shareholders giving back a proportion through philanthrophy. Sure it may not go exactly where some bureaucrat might want it, but it does spread the wealth without damaging incentives (as an example, our family gives away 12.5% of annual profits and c. 75% of non-strategic investments on death). Admittedly we are probably on the extreme...
Government needs to work to create a culture of giving, and to facilitate the same through the tax system
The FT reports in March that wealth held in tax havens stand at approximately 8.5 trillion dollars right now.
Of course, that's wealth from around the world, not just UK citizens. But its a big number.
I don't know whether opinion polls were reliable enough in the past to really be able to give a good idea of voting intention between elections. I'd guess Labour have recovered alot faster than other previous parties although being the only party of opposition will have helped.
See my link earlier. Income is becoming unequal just as much in these "leaner" countries like China, India etc. Losing out to the East is not the cause of this inequality as it's happening there too. I suspect it's technology induced.
I read somewhere that the victorian rich gave 10% of their incomes to charity and today the number is 1%.
But then the victorian rich paid virtually no tax. maybe 3p in the pound.
If we slashed the top rate of taxation to say, 15 per cent, would vast amounts of cash come back onshore? would the wealthy suddenly become much more philanthropic?
I doubt it. But it might be worth a try
It muddles efficiency and effectiveness. A highly efficient and competitive ground operation is a good resource to have (and all parties should seek to develop it) but more factors need to be at play to guarantee electoral success.
The UKIP surge is not based on any developed ground operation ,yet, while the sun shines, it delivers the votes.
A superior LAB GOTV will help the reds but it will not secure them victory even in the marginals.
The state of the economy in 2015, the risk of returning it to Labour control and the forward prospects of reaping a return on austerity will be far more powerful factors in determining the outcome of the GE.
France is chief ostrich in the EU - an EU which wants to pretend supply side reform and competitiveness away. We're in for a brutally hard adjustment as the rest of the world out-competes us (or at least out-competes the unskilled). Nothing that comes from Brussels is going to make that adjustment faster or smoother - quite the opposite in fact. The EU will make the journey and the outcome way more painful for the UK than if we just walk.
In your part of the world its already there, isn't it? average wage on Merseyside 20 grand? double income 35 grand?
I reckon you can probably pick up properties for 60 grand n some parts of that lovely part of the world?
Its only in the dynamic wealth powerhouse that is the south east there's a problem
We really don't have to give away any money, but we choose to do so (and would do so regardless of incentivisation).
I know you don't understand the concept of people wanting to be generous and share their good fortune without the intervention of the government, but it really does exist.
So 0% inheritance tax on wealth earned by individuals but 50% on inherited wealth for instance?
So Richard Branson can leave all his money to his kids free of tax but they would only be able to leave 50% of that inheritance to their children. The idea being with such a head start they should be able to earn the other 50% themselves.
Is this nonsense?!
My point is that unless the majority of people in a society are more or less content with their lives and are confident of their childrens' futures, then that society has a very real problem. I'd argue that we are getting to a stage where we can no longer be confident that either is the case. There is no choice here. Solutions must be found if we are to avoid major upheavals further down the line. Britain's genius over the last 300 years or so has always been to do enough to avoid the serious conflicts that have engulfed so many other parts of the world, including places very close to home. We need that genius to reassert itself once more.
This from a supporter of a govt that switched its inflation targeting mid-term to CPI from RPI underpinning the most damaging housing boom in recent history?
As they would say on CiF - beyond irony.
No ones coming up for much of a solution there either.
http://vote-2012.proboards.com/post/82801/thread
Rallings & Thrasher probably have something similar but they don't make it publicly available.
Around your verbosity lies the critical point that the average voter probably won't feel better any better off in 2015. Labour's challenge is twofold - to be credible and optimistic. Yes, the Coalition has managed austerity but who will be trusted to manage the recovery?
The undercurrent that the Conservative agenda is predicated on improving the lot of the few is going to be a tough one to shift but Labour need to be much more convincing themselves.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sport/football/article-2340177/Clive-Allen-joined-Arsenal-33-years-ago-today-left-months.html
The ravages of plagues led to big increases in the leverage of the poor after they passed (supply and demand of labour).
The shift from a primarily agrarian society to one more based around pastoral farming (region specific) was a huge shift (and led to riots, polemics, etc), alongside great related developments in trade (particularly in relation to Suffolk with a chunk of the Dutch wool trade running through there).
The 1% of both times would still have been the king and aristocratic landowners, the lawyers, merchants, etc were more of an emerging "middling sort" (albeit some were richer than the aristocracy, but money certainly wasn't everything back then). The rise of that "middling sort" professionals and a shift from an economic and legal system based on feudalism, land, control, and service to one closer to mobility and money is an immense shift.
There is no political solution to the problems; politics can only try to get the best deal with the hand we have.
Technology is the only way forward. New technology has changed our lives over the last two centuries, mostly for the better. To continue to improve we need new technology, from energy to materials. But especially materials.
However it is costly. As an example: the $1 billion IFMIF plant is being built to investigate materials that might be able to be used in a nuclear fusion reactor. Not to build a reactor: just to develop the required materials.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_Fusion_Materials_Irradiation_Facility
The diamond light source is a good start, but we need to do more. Materials enables technology and improved human lives on every level. Through materials we progress as a society.
http://www.diamond.ac.uk/
Its coming - like global warming man - you'll be sorry.
?????????
I'm trying to think of a single serious conflict we haven't been involved in during the last 300 years.
WW1 bled Britain dry. And WW2, coming so soon after, almost finished us off. It's taken us decades to recover.
Some countries suffered much more, I grant you, but relative to their size, resources and population? I'm not sure.
I'm not trying to be as dramactic as saying something as that is happening, but we've only have had the 'good times' for the last 60 years since then end of WW2, that's a tiny amount of time on the historical scale... roll it on 60 years and who knows where we are?
Do you actually believe this drivel?
but certainly when you consider only 60-70 years since WW2, that period of time which we consider to be the 'modern age' is only a drop of time. There is no real reason why the current system of anything we currently do, from economics, to technology, to political systems, and the expectations we have from those to continue unchanged.
the only thing which is certain is that things change.. not always for the better.
From your link IFMIF looks rather undeveloped and I can't even see where it is meant to be located. Is there any likelihood of it actually happening?
Also in the link they were talking about radiation damage levels of 100dpa. We're not far off that in some of the very long life components in current fission LWRs, so at the rate fusion research is going, their fission cousins may have already found the necessary materials.
What are they doing right?
Well their education system is clearly a lot better than ours both at school level and in work. Curiously our elite universities is something they cannot match but that only helps a very small percentage of the population, not enough to affect overall economic performance.
Their financial system is not geared to casino like gains but long term investment. This can clearly be overdone but we are at the wrong point in the specturm.
They invest in high tech where their skills, quantity of investment and long term approach are maximised to give them a competitive advantage. We manage this in some small segments (cars, aerospace, defence, pharma) but not overall.
Curiously they have what looks like a backward retail system by our standards but it clearly creates more jobs.
Fundamentally, they run almost puritanical monetary systems resisiting inflation, coping with rather than moaning about currency appreciation and keeping their wages in check in the good times. Add that to the euro and the effects have been dramatic and admirable.
Not all of these lessons are directly applicable. We have different strengths. We have more imagination and creativity built on a more liberal arts education. But only a fool would think that there are not important lessons to learn, both for us and most of the rest of europe.
The 2010- 2013 fictional bubble : people not borrowing more money.
Ahem. That happened immediately AFTER a Marxist president was replaced by a conservative president. Bloody Tories and their politics of envy, eh?
Clearly the Germans do a lot right, but they are also benefitting hugely from the nature of the Euro massively undervaluing their currency, and money flooding in as it flees the rest of the zone.
Plus inequality is increasing there. They have more jobs, but a lot of the new jobs are of poorer quality.
As someone pushing for a separate Scotland to be part of the EU, using the Euro - you really need to pay attention.