I beginning to think that these opinion polls are not worthy of the expert analysis this site lavishes on them. It is like running the data from an electron microscope through a quantum computer when studying the entrails of a sheep.
Quantum computers don't really work yet. But perhaps that is your point.
Part 1 of the equation, requiring the Tories to take 2% off UKIP may be taking place, but Part 2 , involving the LibDems taking 2% off Labour also has to happen before Dave & Co. have any chance of winning the GE. Meanwhile, Chris Hanretty & Others' latest 2015 UK Parliamentary Election Forecast shows Labour on 277 seats, just 4 seats behind the Tories on 281. Interestingly, this projection also shows UKIP winning just one very lonely seat, in sharp contrast to some of the smartest bettors on PB.com who rate the Purples a buy on 5 seats.
The notion that UKIP might only get 1 seat has got me worried. Back in March 2013 I got, via beards, £200 on at 8/1 with Hills that UKIP would get more than one seat. This has been my big banker - guaranteed winnings it seemed. Alas that might not be the case.
I have a feeling that a shock defeat of Nigel Farage could be the story of election night.
I also got a text today from a close friend who (although a life-long sympathesiser) has only just joined the Conservatives in the past 12 months. He lives in Tonbridge and is getting a lot of encouragement (pressure?) from his local association to get actively involved and help in Rochester and Strood.
The Tories really are throwing absolutely everything at Reckless. He is hated.
Mark Reckless? Hated by Tories?
I find that hard to believe
*Innocent Face*
If you're a Tory that hates Reckless or Carswell then you're a fool.
I like Carswell.
I hate Reckless, because he ruined my plans one Saturday afternoon last September
I've had enough of minnow's like Survation and Opinium. Time to bring on the big gun's like ICM and Mori.
As a political bettor I really wonder whether any of the polling companies have a clue. The pitfalls of adjustments bedevil them all, and it's precisely those adjustments that they can't know when to throw out.
As things stand I think we're on course for a wafer thin Tory win, SNP to have almost total domination in Scotland, LD's to have sufficient numbers to be easily able to book a table in a restaurant, and the Greens to be sufficient to form a meeting.
This isn't aimed at you.
But I heard the same arguments levelled against the pollsters during the lead up to the Indyref.
By and large, most of them got the result well within the margin of error.
Whilst I understand the difference between a FPTP election and a referendum with a binary choice, that gives me confidence that most of the pollsters will get this election right.
Short term memory loss and all that but "well" within the margin of error? IIRC the actual No lead was 11% - how many of the polls were reasonably close?
Part 1 of the equation, requiring the Tories to take 2% off UKIP may be taking place, but Part 2 , involving the LibDems taking 2% off Labour also has to happen before Dave & Co. have any chance of winning the GE. Meanwhile, Chris Hanretty & Others' latest 2015 UK Parliamentary Election Forecast shows Labour on 277 seats, just 4 seats behind the Tories on 281. Interestingly, this projection also shows UKIP winning just one very lonely seat, in sharp contrast to some of the smartest bettors on PB.com who rate the Purples a buy on 5 seats.
The notion that UKIP might only get 1 seat has got me worried. Back in March 2013 I got, via beards, £200 on at 8/1 with Hills that UKIP would get more than one seat. This has been my big banker - guaranteed winnings it seemed. Alas that might not be the case.
I have a feeling that a shock defeat of Nigel Farage could be the story of election night.
I also got a text today from a close friend who (although a life-long sympathesiser) has only just joined the Conservatives in the past 12 months. He lives in Tonbridge and is getting a lot of encouragement (pressure?) from his local association to get actively involved and help in Rochester and Strood.
The Tories really are throwing absolutely everything at Reckless. He is hated.
Mark Reckless? Hated by Tories?
I find that hard to believe
*Innocent Face*
If you're a Tory that hates Reckless or Carswell then you're a fool.
TSE is therefore no fool as he doesn't hate Carswell
Part 1 of the equation, requiring the Tories to take 2% off UKIP may be taking place, but Part 2 , involving the LibDems taking 2% off Labour also has to happen before Dave & Co. have any chance of winning the GE. Meanwhile, Chris Hanretty & Others' latest 2015 UK Parliamentary Election Forecast shows Labour on 277 seats, just 4 seats behind the Tories on 281. Interestingly, this projection also shows UKIP winning just one very lonely seat, in sharp contrast to some of the smartest bettors on PB.com who rate the Purples a buy on 5 seats.
I have a feeling that a shock defeat of Nigel Farage could be the story of election night.
I also got a text today from a close friend who (although a life-long sympathesiser) has only just joined the Conservatives in the past 12 months. He lives in Tonbridge and is getting a lot of encouragement (pressure?) from his local association to get actively involved and help in Rochester and Strood.
The Tories really are throwing absolutely everything at Reckless. He is hated.
Good lord
It's as if things that actually happen don't count on here
So what?! They threw absolutely everything at him last time... He won at a canter
The Tory candidate is/was useless , she had to be replaced in a hustings this week by Damian green, while Reckless has been a solid Ukip mp , speaking authoritavely on national TV
I'm reporting what I've been told, I'm sorry if you don't like it.
But "The Tories really are throwing absolutely everything at Reckless" is gibberish. What is being done that is not being done by the Tories in every winnable seat? And if it's going to be so effective why don't they just "throw absolutely everything" at the opposition in each of the top 100 marginals and win a landslide? It's like tipping a horse in the National because the Owner/trainer/jockey really, really wants to win the race.
Quite a bit more is being done because: (1) they think R&S is the most "winnable" of all their target seats in that part of the country (not many Lib Dem targets in that part of the country) and (2) they want to punish Reckless for his duplicity, so motivation is very high.
Perversely, it's rural Conservative associations in the Shires that tend to be the most resilient and have the most members, so they have a lot of groundworkers to drawn upon. You fight where you think you can win.
I expect there are also strong defensive campaigns in Thanet North, Thanet South, Dover, Castle Point, and Basildon South and Thurrock East.
Thurrock will be fought but sounds like it's probably been written off by CCHQ.
Any reports on UKIP activity in general. In my seat they seem to have gone missing since the campaign kicked off.
In spite of my earlier posts, it appears from my local spies that Castle Point has at least two UKIP "shops", one of them being a newsagent who announces in his window that UKIP supporters are welcome.Shall investigate ...... try and but a Guardian there .....later in the week and report.
My daughter, who died early last year, has, my granddaughter reports, had a letter from David Cameron urging her to vote Tory!
I've had enough of minnow's like Survation and Opinium. Time to bring on the big gun's like ICM and Mori.
As a political bettor I really wonder whether any of the polling companies have a clue. The pitfalls of adjustments bedevil them all, and it's precisely those adjustments that they can't know when to throw out.
As things stand I think we're on course for a wafer thin Tory win, SNP to have almost total domination in Scotland, LD's to have sufficient numbers to be easily able to book a table in a restaurant, and the Greens to be sufficient to form a meeting.
This isn't aimed at you.
But I heard the same arguments levelled against the pollsters during the lead up to the Indyref.
By and large, most of them got the result well within the margin of error.
Whilst I understand the difference between a FPTP election and a referendum with a binary choice, that gives me confidence that most of the pollsters will get this election right.
OK lets have a bet.
I will pledge to postfix your name with "(the proven wise man)" whenever I refer to you post election if the pollsters get it right, and you will agree likewise. I'm happy that you can be the judge of the result, but I'd suggest perhaps +/- 3.5% for any party?
Anthony Wells retweeted charles hymas @charleshymas 1m1 minute ago #Sundaytimes #yougov Tories and Labour still neck and neck tonight: Con 34% Lab 34% Ukip 13% LD 7% Green 6% SNP 5% Others 1%
Part 1 of the equation, requiring the Tories to take 2% off UKIP may be taking place, but Part 2 , involving the LibDems taking 2% off Labour also has to happen before Dave & Co. have any chance of winning the GE. Meanwhile, Chris Hanretty & Others' latest 2015 UK Parliamentary Election Forecast shows Labour on 277 seats, just 4 seats behind the Tories on 281. Interestingly, this projection also shows UKIP winning just one very lonely seat, in sharp contrast to some of the smartest bettors on PB.com who rate the Purples a buy on 5 seats.
The notion that UKIP might only get 1 seat has got me worried. Back in March 2013 I got, via beards, £200 on at 8/1 with Hills that UKIP would get more than one seat. This has been my big banker - guaranteed winnings it seemed. Alas that might not be the case.
I have a feeling that a shock defeat of Nigel Farage could be the story of election night.
I also got a text today from a close friend who (although a life-long sympathesiser) has only just joined the Conservatives in the past 12 months. He lives in Tonbridge and is getting a lot of encouragement (pressure?) from his local association to get actively involved and help in Rochester and Strood.
The Tories really are throwing absolutely everything at Reckless. He is hated.
Good lord
It's as if things that actually happen don't count on here
So what?! They threw absolutely everything at him last time... He won at a canter
The Tory candidate is/was useless , she had to be replaced in a hustings this week by Damian green, while Reckless has been a solid Ukip mp , speaking authoritavely on national TV
Polling showed huge numbers of Tories having a "holiday shag" with UKIP at the by-election, but returning to the fold at the General. I personally think Reckless is well gone, given how far UKIP are off their autumn peak.
I also don't see them getting close in Rother Valley or Grimsby.
In both those last two seats, UKIP are facing off against Labour. UKIP were 3% behind Labour in Dudley North in December, 1% behind in Great Grimsby and 6% behind in Rother Valley.
There could be an under the radar shock, just as there almost was with Heywood & Middleton.
Part 1 of the equation, requiring the Tories to take 2% off UKIP may be taking place, but Part 2 , involving the LibDems taking 2% off Labour also has to happen before Dave & Co. have any chance of winning the GE. Meanwhile, Chris Hanretty & Others' latest 2015 UK Parliamentary Election Forecast shows Labour on 277 seats, just 4 seats behind the Tories on 281. Interestingly, this projection also shows UKIP winning just one very lonely seat, in sharp contrast to some of the smartest bettors on PB.com who rate the Purples a buy on 5 seats.
The notion that UKIP might only get 1 seat has got me worried. Back in March 2013 I got, via beards, £200 on at 8/1 with Hills that UKIP would get more than one seat. This has been my big banker - guaranteed winnings it seemed. Alas that might not be the case.
I have a feeling that a shock defeat of Nigel Farage could be the story of election night.
I also got a text today from a close friend who (although a life-long sympathesiser) has only just joined the Conservatives in the past 12 months. He lives in Tonbridge and is getting a lot of encouragement (pressure?) from his local association to get actively involved and help in Rochester and Strood.
The Tories really are throwing absolutely everything at Reckless. He is hated.
Mark Reckless? Hated by Tories?
I find that hard to believe
*Innocent Face*
If you're a Tory that hates Reckless or Carswell then you're a fool.
TSE is therefore no fool as he doesn't hate Carswell
Our local priest refused to marry my sister and her husband for that very reason. Dug his heels in. It ended up with him being sick on the day, and the local Bishop standing in (all prearranged, naturally!)
Charles May I ask when that was?
2008.
It was a little more complicated than that: it is a rural church with one priest shared across three parishes. The priest wanted to close our church, because it was more traditional than he liked (his excuse was that his time was better spent ministering to the poor), but our family teamed up with the local squire to make sure that he wasn't able to do so.
That is actually very recent in these terms. I really take my hat off to Clergy who take a principled stand rather than just going with the flow for a quiet life. It is a pity that the Archbishop of Canterbury - then Rowan Williams - failed to take the golden opportunity presented by William & Kate's wedding in 2011 to make the same point. Moreover, though she would never have said so in public I rather suspect that the Queen would have agreed with him!
Part 1 of the equation, requiring the Tories to take 2% off UKIP may be taking place, but Part 2 , involving the LibDems taking 2% off Labour also has to happen before Dave & Co. have any chance of winning the GE. Meanwhile, Chris Hanretty & Others' latest 2015 UK Parliamentary Election Forecast shows Labour on 277 seats, just 4 seats behind the Tories on 281. Interestingly, this projection also shows UKIP winning just one very lonely seat, in sharp contrast to some of the smartest bettors on PB.com who rate the Purples a buy on 5 seats.
The notion that UKIP might only get 1 seat has got me worried. Back in March 2013 I got, via beards, £200 on at 8/1 with Hills that UKIP would get more than one seat. This has been my big banker - guaranteed winnings it seemed. Alas that might not be the case.
I have a feeling that a shock defeat of Nigel Farage could be the story of election night.
I also got a text today from a close friend who (although a life-long sympathesiser) has only just joined the Conservatives in the past 12 months. He lives in Tonbridge and is getting a lot of encouragement (pressure?) from his local association to get actively involved and help in Rochester and Strood.
The Tories really are throwing absolutely everything at Reckless. He is hated.
Mark Reckless? Hated by Tories?
I find that hard to believe
*Innocent Face*
I've been shocked at some of the language I've heard used about him.
I beginning to think that these opinion polls are not worthy of the expert analysis this site lavishes on them. It is like running the data from an electron microscope through a quantum computer when studying the entrails of a sheep.
Quantum computers don't really work yet. But perhaps that is your point.
Quantum computers work perfectly well, except when you look at them.
Part 1 of the equation, requiring the Tories to take 2% off UKIP may be taking place, but Part 2 , involving the LibDems taking 2% off Labour also has to happen before Dave & Co. have any chance of winning the GE. Meanwhile, Chris Hanretty & Others' latest 2015 UK Parliamentary Election Forecast shows Labour on 277 seats, just 4 seats behind the Tories on 281. Interestingly, this projection also shows UKIP winning just one very lonely seat, in sharp contrast to some of the smartest bettors on PB.com who rate the Purples a buy on 5 seats.
The notion that UKIP might only get 1 seat has got me worried. Back in March 2013 I got, via beards, £200 on at 8/1 with Hills that UKIP would get more than one seat. This has been my big banker - guaranteed winnings it seemed. Alas that might not be the case.
I have a feeling that a shock defeat of Nigel Farage could be the story of election night.
I also got a text today from a close friend who (although a life-long sympathesiser) has only just joined the Conservatives in the past 12 months. He lives in Tonbridge and is getting a lot of encouragement (pressure?) from his local association to get actively involved and help in Rochester and Strood.
The Tories really are throwing absolutely everything at Reckless. He is hated.
Mark Reckless? Hated by Tories?
I find that hard to believe
*Innocent Face*
If you're a Tory that hates Reckless or Carswell then you're a fool.
TSE is therefore no fool as he doesn't hate Carswell
I'd have a little look in some logic texts if I was you.
'I see Andy Murray has got married in Dunblane Cathedral.Apparently in Scotland it is being treated as the wedding of the year. Find it strange that a couple that have been ‘living in sin’ for over six years end up having a white church wedding. It seems rather hypocritical and it surprises me that the clergy agree to carry out such services the effect of which is to bring the church into disrepute.'
Pulupstar 'Christ that's out the fifties playbook ! '
It's actually nothing of the kind. Churches would not have behaved like this in the 70s and 80s.
The Church of Scotland elsewhere in Scotland, I understand, refuses to marry people who have been living together for the past 30 days. However it will marry them if, although they been living together or a year or more, they separate for the 30 days prior to the wedding!
A minister has the right to choose who they do and do not marry, however this should follow the guidelines set out by the general assembly, which as far as I know have absolutely no bar on cohabiting couples marrying.
Moreover, if the minister does refuse or accept they can be removed from their position by the leity of the parish. It may be that there are some communities where they tell their minister not to marry cohabiting couples but I would expect that to be very, very rare and in such hard c conservative communities most will already be Wee Free or similar offshoot.
I can assure you that there are some Ministers - I am talking about England & Wales here - who would not knowingly marry couples who had aleady had full sexual relations with each other. At the end of the day 'chastity before marriage' is what the Christian Churches are supposed to believe in! Of course many find it impossible to live by that principle but surely such people should not expect the Church to facilitate the hypocrisy of a white wedding. By turning a blind eye the Churches imply that their principles count for nothing and that moral laisser-faire rules ok! As for Ministers refusing to marry cohabiting couples being very, very rare I would respectfully suggest that until - say - the 1980s it was very rare for cohabiting couples to marry in church at all!
So you wish to impose your English mores on Scotland.
Our local priest refused to marry my sister and her husband for that very reason. Dug his heels in. It ended up with him being sick on the day, and the local Bishop standing in (all prearranged, naturally!)
Charles May I ask when that was?
2008.
It was a little more complicated than that: it is a rural church with one priest shared across three parishes. The priest wanted to close our church, because it was more traditional than he liked (his excuse was that his time was better spent ministering to the poor), but our family teamed up with the local squire to make sure that he wasn't able to do so.
That is actually very recent in these terms. I really take my hat off to Clergy who take a principled stand rather than just going with the flow for a quiet life. It is a pity that the Archbishop of Canterbury - then Rowan Williams - failed to take the golden opportunity presented by William & Kate's wedding in 2011 to make the same point. Moreover, though she would never have said so in public I rather suspect that the Queen would have agreed with him!
I'm not sure if you're deliberately ignoring the point or merely ignorant.
The service was in a Church Scotland establishment.
The clergy in Scotland have NO SAY in how the church is run. It is run by lay people. Their position depends on the goodwill of lay people. The policy is decided by lay people.
'Yesterday night I went to some friends for dinner and as I left I asked who they thought would win the election? They answered that Labour had a huge problem.
"What" I asked?
"Their leader is rubbish".
Make your mind up ,yesterday you were telling us of Eds' love-in.
'I've just heard from some people who met Ed in Edinburgh this evening and they said 'he's quite delightful'. That's enough for me. I think things might turn in Scotland'
On a more scientific basis what is the feedback from your barber & most recent taxi driver?
Our local priest refused to marry my sister and her husband for that very reason. Dug his heels in. It ended up with him being sick on the day, and the local Bishop standing in (all prearranged, naturally!)
Charles May I ask when that was?
2008.
It was a little more complicated than that: it is a rural church with one priest shared across three parishes. The priest wanted to close our church, because it was more traditional than he liked (his excuse was that his time was better spent ministering to the poor), but our family teamed up with the local squire to make sure that he wasn't able to do so.
That is actually very recent in these terms. I really take my hat off to Clergy who take a principled stand rather than just going with the flow for a quiet life. It is a pity that the Archbishop of Canterbury - then Rowan Williams - failed to take the golden opportunity presented by William & Kate's wedding in 2011 to make the same point. Moreover, though she would never have said so in public I rather suspect that the Queen would have agreed with him!
It was a pathetic excuse by a stupid little man.
He first tried to argue that she had no connection to the parish because she lived in London (ignoring the fact that she had moved into the parish aged 4 and our parents still lived there).
Then he tried the pre-marital excuse.
He then tried to push the squire's wife off the parish council (forgetting that she had been a churchwarden for 30 years and her husband owned the church)
'I see Andy Murray has got married in Dunblane Cathedral.Apparently in Scotland it is being treated as the wedding of the year. Find it strange that a couple that have been ‘living in sin’ for over six years end up having a white church wedding. It seems rather hypocritical and it surprises me that the clergy agree to carry out such services the effect of which is to bring the church into disrepute.'
Pulupstar 'Christ that's out the fifties playbook ! '
It's actually nothing of the kind. Churches would not have behaved like this in the 70s and 80s.
The Church of Scotland elsewhere in Scotland, I understand, refuses to marry people who have been living together for the past 30 days. However it will marry them if, although they been living together or a year or more, they separate for the 30 days prior to the wedding!
Snip
Moreover, if the minister does refuse or accept they can be removed from their position by the leity of the parish. It may be that there are some communities where they tell their minister not to marry cohabiting couples but I would expect that to be very, very rare and in such hard c conservative communities most will already be Wee Free or similar offshoot.
I can assure you that there are some Ministers - I am talking about England & Wales here - who would not knowingly marry couples who had aleady had full sexual relations with each other. At the end of the day 'chastity before marriage' is what the Christian Churches are supposed to believe in! Of course many find it impossible to live by that principle but surely such people should not expect the Church to facilitate the hypocrisy of a white wedding. By turning a blind eye the Churches imply that their principles count for nothing and that moral laisser-faire rules ok! As for Ministers refusing to marry cohabiting couples being very, very rare I would respectfully suggest that until - say - the 1980s it was very rare for cohabiting couples to marry in church at all!
Chastity before marriage has, surely always been fairly unusual, except among people where it was essential to be assured that the first child was that of the husband. I'm pretty sure that in some parts of theese islands some evidence of the brides fertility ws needed before marriage.
Not just there - there is a story, possibly apocryphal, of a man in a small southern town who marries his school sweetheart.
On their wedding night, she asks him to be gentle, as she is a virgin.
Enraged, he makes her dress, then drives her back to her family home.
He tells her father that if she wasn't good enough for her brother, then she certainly isn't good enough for him...
I've had enough of minnow's like Survation and Opinium. Time to bring on the big gun's like ICM and Mori.
As a political bettor I really wonder whether any of the polling companies have a clue. The pitfalls of adjustments bedevil them all, and it's precisely those adjustments that they can't know when to throw out.
As things stand I think we're on course for a wafer thin Tory win, SNP to have almost total domination in Scotland, LD's to have sufficient numbers to be easily able to book a table in a restaurant, and the Greens to be sufficient to form a meeting.
This isn't aimed at you.
But I heard the same arguments levelled against the pollsters during the lead up to the Indyref.
By and large, most of them got the result well within the margin of error.
Whilst I understand the difference between a FPTP election and a referendum with a binary choice, that gives me confidence that most of the pollsters will get this election right.
Short term memory loss and all that but "well" within the margin of error? IIRC the actual No lead was 11% - how many of the polls were reasonably close?
Ipsos Mori had No of 53, Survation had them on 53 also, Panelbase had them on 52, Ditto YouGov, all within the MoE
Part 1 of the equation, requiring the Tories to take 2% off UKIP may be taking place, but Part 2 , involving the LibDems taking 2% off Labour also has to happen before Dave & Co. have any chance of winning the GE. Meanwhile, Chris Hanretty & Others' latest 2015 UK Parliamentary Election Forecast shows Labour on 277 seats, just 4 seats behind the Tories on 281. Interestingly, this projection also shows UKIP winning just one very lonely seat, in sharp contrast to some of the smartest bettors on PB.com who rate the Purples a buy on 5 seats.
The notion that UKIP might only get 1 seat has got me worried. Back in March 2013 I got, via beards, £200 on at 8/1 with Hills that UKIP would get more than one seat. This has been my big banker - guaranteed winnings it seemed. Alas that might not be the case.
I have a feeling that a shock defeat of Nigel Farage could be the story of election night.
I also got a text today from a close friend who (although a life-long sympathesiser) has only just joined the Conservatives in the past 12 months. He lives in Tonbridge and is getting a lot of encouragement (pressure?) from his local association to get actively involved and help in Rochester and Strood.
The Tories really are throwing absolutely everything at Reckless. He is hated.
Mark Reckless? Hated by Tories?
I find that hard to believe
*Innocent Face*
I've been shocked at some of the language I've heard used about him.
Carswell defected in an honourable and dignified manner.
Part 1 of the equation, requiring the Tories to take 2% off UKIP may be taking place, but Part 2 , involving the LibDems taking 2% off Labour also has to happen before Dave & Co. have any chance of winning the GE. Meanwhile, Chris Hanretty & Others' latest 2015 UK Parliamentary Election Forecast shows Labour on 277 seats, just 4 seats behind the Tories on 281. Interestingly, this projection also shows UKIP winning just one very lonely seat, in sharp contrast to some of the smartest bettors on PB.com who rate the Purples a buy on 5 seats.
The notion that UKIP might only get 1 seat has got me worried. Back in March 2013 I got, via beards, £200 on at 8/1 with Hills that UKIP would get more than one seat. This has been my big banker - guaranteed winnings it seemed. Alas that might not be the case.
I have a feeling that a shock defeat of Nigel Farage could be the story of election night.
I also got a text today from a close friend who (although a life-long sympathesiser) has only just joined the Conservatives in the past 12 months. He lives in Tonbridge and is getting a lot of encouragement (pressure?) from his local association to get actively involved and help in Rochester and Strood.
The Tories really are throwing absolutely everything at Reckless. He is hated.
Mark Reckless? Hated by Tories?
I find that hard to believe
*Innocent Face*
I've been shocked at some of the language I've heard used about him.
I also took no pleasure in writing a PB thread header, quoting a Tory MP who said
on Mark Reckless defecting: "I can't say the word c**t but he's a f**king c**t who deserves a hot poker up his arse."
'I see Andy Murray has got married in Dunblane Cathedral.Apparently in Scotland it is being treated as the wedding of the year. Find it strange that a couple that have been ‘living in sin’ for over six years end up having a white church wedding. It seems rather hypocritical and it surprises me that the clergy agree to carry out such services the effect of which is to bring the church into disrepute.'
Pulupstar 'Christ that's out the fifties playbook ! '
It's actually nothing of the kind. Churches would not have behaved like this in the 70s and 80s.
CoS first ordinated a female minister in 1969. It has always been far more progessive than the psuedo-Roman church down south.
Or the Roman Church in Scotland ;-)
Though was it the RCs or the Presbyterians who kept homosexuality illegal in Scotland until 1980?
It is worth noting that many English Protestant sects had women ministers in the 17th Century.
The delayed gay rights were entirely due to the Labour Party which were (and to an extent still are) the political wing of the Roman Catholic Church in Scotland.
My Scots ancestors were Free Presbyterians, and I still have strong leanings that way. The great seperation of 1834 was in essence a class war. Who decides the minister and doctrine? The Laird or the congregation?
Historically the SNP was much stronger in the areas of Presbyterian Scotland, but recently that seems to have lessened.
I sometimes wonder about the relationship between non-conformist churches and the Peoples Front for the Liberation of Judea (et al)
Sure, there is a lot of that, but splitters are intrinsic to Protestantism. Once you accept that it is acceptable to split from the national Church, then it is very likely to be acceptable to split from the splinter group on some other issue.
Where there are people, there are politics. Church politics is phrased a bit differently, but the issues are often surprisingly similar. The Free Presbyterians re-merged with the Orthodox Presbyterians in the 1920's as the issue was no longer so strongly felt, and later merged in England with the Congregationalists to form the URC.
I've had enough of minnow's like Survation and Opinium. Time to bring on the big gun's like ICM and Mori.
As a political bettor I really wonder whether any of the polling companies have a clue. The pitfalls of adjustments bedevil them all, and it's precisely those adjustments that they can't know when to throw out.
As things stand I think we're on course for a wafer thin Tory win, SNP to have almost total domination in Scotland, LD's to have sufficient numbers to be easily able to book a table in a restaurant, and the Greens to be sufficient to form a meeting.
This isn't aimed at you.
But I heard the same arguments levelled against the pollsters during the lead up to the Indyref.
By and large, most of them got the result well within the margin of error.
Whilst I understand the difference between a FPTP election and a referendum with a binary choice, that gives me confidence that most of the pollsters will get this election right.
OK lets have a bet.
I will pledge to postfix your name with "(the proven wise man)" whenever I refer to you post election if the pollsters get it right, and you will agree likewise. I'm happy that you can be the judge of the result, but I'd suggest perhaps +/- 3.5% for any party?
I've had enough of minnow's like Survation and Opinium. Time to bring on the big gun's like ICM and Mori.
As a political bettor I really wonder whether any of the polling companies have a clue. The pitfalls of adjustments bedevil them all, and it's precisely those adjustments that they can't know when to throw out.
As things stand I think we're on course for a wafer thin Tory win, SNP to have almost total domination in Scotland, LD's to have sufficient numbers to be easily able to book a table in a restaurant, and the Greens to be sufficient to form a meeting.
This isn't aimed at you.
But I heard the same arguments levelled against the pollsters during the lead up to the Indyref.
By and large, most of them got the result well within the margin of error.
Whilst I understand the difference between a FPTP election and a referendum with a binary choice, that gives me confidence that most of the pollsters will get this election right.
Could you not both be right?
If the average of the polls all show a statistical tie all the way to polling day (a big if) then they'd still be within the MoE if the Tories beat Labour on GB votes by 2-3%.
Whether that would be enough for Cameron to stay in power, or not, is another matter.
'I see Andy Murray has got married in Dunblane Cathedral.Apparently in Scotland it is being treated as the wedding of the year. Find it strange that a couple that have been ‘living in sin’ for over six years end up having a white church wedding. It seems rather hypocritical and it surprises me that the clergy agree to carry out such services the effect of which is to bring the church into disrepute.'
Pulupstar 'Christ that's out the fifties playbook ! '
It's actually nothing of the kind. Churches would not have behaved like this in the 70s and 80s.
The Church of Scotland elsewhere in Scotland, I understand, refuses to marry people who have been living together for the past 30 days. However it will marry them if, although they been living together or a year or more, they separate for the 30 days prior to the wedding!
A minister has the right to choose who they do and do not marry, however this should follow the guidelines set out by the general assembly, which as far as I know have absolutely no bar on cohabiting couples marrying.
Moreover, if the minister does refuse or accept they can be removed from their position by the leity of the parish. It may be that there are some communities where they tell their minister not to marry cohabiting couples but I would expect that to be very, very rare and in such hard c conservative communities most will already be Wee Free or similar offshoot.
I can assure you that there are some Ministers - I am talking about England & Wales here - who would not knowingly marry couples who had aleady had full sexual relations with each other. At the end of the day 'chastity before marriage' is what the Christian Churches are supposed to believe in! Of course many find it impossible to live by that principle but surely such people should not expect the Church to facilitate the hypocrisy of a white wedding. By turning a blind eye the Churches imply that their principles count for nothing and that moral laisser-faire rules ok! As for Ministers refusing to marry cohabiting couples being very, very rare I would respectfully suggest that until - say - the 1980s it was very rare for cohabiting couples to marry in church at all!
So you wish to impose your English mores on Scotland.
'Yesterday night I went to some friends for dinner and as I left I asked who they thought would win the election? They answered that Labour had a huge problem.
"What" I asked?
"Their leader is rubbish".
Make your mind up ,yesterday you were telling us of Eds' love-in.
'I've just heard from some people who met Ed in Edinburgh this evening and they said 'he's quite delightful'. That's enough for me. I think things might turn in Scotland'
On a more scientific basis what is the feedback from your barber & most recent taxi driver?
I'm going to ask my Aunt Doris. She'll know for sure
Reckless isn't hated by anybody, he's a quiet unassuming bloke, the tories just bitterly resent him defecting because he's so good at his job. The tory candidate is very poor, Carswell is nailed on, Reckless is not far behind.
I've had enough of minnow's like Survation and Opinium. Time to bring on the big gun's like ICM and Mori.
As a political bettor I really wonder whether any of the polling companies have a clue. The pitfalls of adjustments bedevil them all, and it's precisely those adjustments that they can't know when to throw out.
As things stand I think we're on course for a wafer thin Tory win, SNP to have almost total domination in Scotland, LD's to have sufficient numbers to be easily able to book a table in a restaurant, and the Greens to be sufficient to form a meeting.
This isn't aimed at you.
But I heard the same arguments levelled against the pollsters during the lead up to the Indyref.
By and large, most of them got the result well within the margin of error.
Whilst I understand the difference between a FPTP election and a referendum with a binary choice, that gives me confidence that most of the pollsters will get this election right.
Short term memory loss and all that but "well" within the margin of error? IIRC the actual No lead was 11% - how many of the polls were reasonably close?
Ipsos Mori had No of 53, Survation had them on 53 also, Panelbase had them on 52, Ditto YouGov, all within the MoE
Thanks and so the actual result was 11 but two polls had leads of 6 and two with 4.
Not terribly impressive would you not agree? And wouldn't Panelbase and YouGov be right at the edge of MoE rather than well within it?
'I see Andy Murray has got married in Dunblane Cathedral.Apparently in Scotland it is being treated as the wedding of the year. Find it strange that a couple that have been ‘living in sin’ for over six years end up having a white church wedding. It seems rather hypocritical and it surprises me that the clergy agree to carry out such services the effect of which is to bring the church into disrepute.'
Pulupstar 'Christ that's out the fifties playbook ! '
It's actually nothing of the kind. Churches would not have behaved like this in the 70s and 80s.
The Church of Scotland elsewhere in Scotland, I understand, refuses to marry people who have been living together for the past 30 days. However it will marry them if, although they been living together or a year or more, they separate for the 30 days prior to the wedding!
A minister has the right to choose who they do and do not marry, however this should follow the guidelines set out by the general assembly, which as far as I know have absolutely no bar on cohabiting couples marrying.
Moreover, if the minister does refuse or accept they can be removed from their position by the leity of the parish. It may be that there are some communities where they tell their minister not to marry cohabiting couples but I would expect that to be very, very rare and in such hard c conservative communities most will already be Wee Free or similar offshoot.
I can assure you that there are some Ministers - I am talking about England & Wales here - who would not knowingly marry couples who had aleady had full sexual relations with each other. At the end of the day 'chastity before marriage' is what the Christian Churches are supposed to believe in! Of course many find it impossible to live by that principle but surely such people should not expect the Church to facilitate the hypocrisy of a white wedding. By turning a blind eye the Churches imply that their principles count for nothing and that moral laisser-faire rules ok! As for Ministers refusing to marry cohabiting couples being very, very rare I would respectfully suggest that until - say - the 1980s it was very rare for cohabiting couples to marry in church at all!
So you wish to impose your English mores on Scotland.
'If Labour are going to fine people for the perfectly legal act of tax avoidance, would they please list all the other perfectly legal activities they intend to fine us for?'
Part 1 of the equation, requiring the Tories to take 2% off UKIP may be taking place, but Part 2 , involving the LibDems taking 2% off Labour also has to happen before Dave & Co. have any chance of winning the GE. Meanwhile, Chris Hanretty & Others' latest 2015 UK Parliamentary Election Forecast shows Labour on 277 seats, just 4 seats behind the Tories on 281. Interestingly, this projection also shows UKIP winning just one very lonely seat, in sharp contrast to some of the smartest bettors on PB.com who rate the Purples a buy on 5 seats.
The notion that UKIP might only get 1 seat has got me worried. Back in March 2013 I got, via beards, £200 on at 8/1 with Hills that UKIP would get more than one seat. This has been my big banker - guaranteed winnings it seemed. Alas that might not be the case.
I have a feeling that a shock defeat of Nigel Farage could be the story of election night.
I also got a text today from a close friend who (although a life-long sympathesiser) has only just joined the Conservatives in the past 12 months. He lives in Tonbridge and is getting a lot of encouragement (pressure?) from his local association to get actively involved and help in Rochester and Strood.
The Tories really are throwing absolutely everything at Reckless. He is hated.
Mark Reckless? Hated by Tories?
I find that hard to believe
*Innocent Face*
I've been shocked at some of the language I've heard used about him.
Carswell defected in an honourable and dignified manner.
I've had enough of minnow's like Survation and Opinium. Time to bring on the big gun's like ICM and Mori.
As a political bettor I really wonder whether any of the polling companies have a clue. The pitfalls of adjustments bedevil them all, and it's precisely those adjustments that they can't know when to throw out.
As things stand I think we're on course for a wafer thin Tory win, SNP to have almost total domination in Scotland, LD's to have sufficient numbers to be easily able to book a table in a restaurant, and the Greens to be sufficient to form a meeting.
This isn't aimed at you.
But I heard the same arguments levelled against the pollsters during the lead up to the Indyref.
By and large, most of them got the result well within the margin of error.
Whilst I understand the difference between a FPTP election and a referendum with a binary choice, that gives me confidence that most of the pollsters will get this election right.
Short term memory loss and all that but "well" within the margin of error? IIRC the actual No lead was 11% - how many of the polls were reasonably close?
Ipsos Mori had No of 53, Survation had them on 53 also, Panelbase had them on 52, Ditto YouGov, all within the MoE
Thanks and so the actual result was 11 but two polls had leads of 6 and two with 4.
Not terribly impressive would you not agree? And wouldn't Panelbase and YouGov be right at the edge of MoE rather than well within it?
They are within the MoE of predicting the No share of the vote.
A-ha. That's very Osborne, as just as the leaked civil service paper suggested.
I suspect he tried to shoehorn this into the last coalition budget, but negotiations failed at the last minute, which is why sounded so notably devoid of sparkle last month.
religious studies was my favourite class at school by a mile, largely due to an excellent teacher. Recall the order of commandments can be tricky, hence this tale we were told.
A priest was making his rounds in his bicycle, visiting members of the parish, ensuring all was well. He emerged from one house, and his bike was nowhere to be seen. He scowled, and resolved to make that day's sermon about the eighth commandment.
As he got into the pulpit, he ran down the list of commandments, but when he reached the seventh he suddenly remembered where he'd left his bicycle.
'I see Andy Murray has got married in Dunblane Cathedral.Apparently in Scotland it is being treated as the wedding of the year. Find it strange that a couple that have been ‘living in sin’ for over six years end up having a white church wedding. It seems rather hypocritical and it surprises me that the clergy agree to carry out such services the effect of which is to bring the church into disrepute.'
Pulupstar 'Christ that's out the fifties playbook ! '
It's actually nothing of the kind. Churches would not have behaved like this in the 70s and 80s.
The Church of Scotland elsewhere in Scotland, I understand, refuses to marry people who have been living together for the past 30 days. However it will marry them if, although they been living together or a year or more, they separate for the 30 days prior to the wedding!
A minister has the right to choose who they do and do not marry, however this should follow the guidelines set out by the general assembly, which as far as I know have absolutely no bar on cohabiting couples marrying.
Moreover, if the minister does refuse or accept they can be removed from their position by the leity of the parish. It may be that there are some communities where they tell their minister not to marry cohabiting couples but I would expect that to be very, very rare and in such hard c conservative communities most will already be Wee Free or similar offshoot.
I can assure you that there are some Ministers - I am talking about England & Wales here - who would not knowingly marry couples who had aleady had full sexual relations with each other. At the end of the day 'chastity before marriage' is what the Christian Churches are supposed to believe in! Of course many find it impossible to live by that principle but surely such people should not expect the Church to facilitate the hypocrisy of a white wedding. By turning a blind eye the Churches imply that their principles count for nothing and that moral laisser-faire rules ok! As for Ministers refusing to marry cohabiting couples being very, very rare I would respectfully suggest that until - say - the 1980s it was very rare for cohabiting couples to marry in church at all!
So you wish to impose your English mores on Scotland.
Reckless isn't hated by anybody, he's a quiet unassuming bloke, the tories just bitterly resent him defecting because he's so good at his job. The tory candidate is very poor, Carswell is nailed on, Reckless is not far behind.
'The Church of Scotland elsewhere in Scotland, I understand, refuses to marry people who have been living together for the past 30 days. However it will marry them if, although they been living together or a year or more, they separate for the 30 days prior to the wedding!'
'A minister has the right to choose who they do and do not marry, however this should follow the guidelines set out by the general assembly, which as far as I know have absolutely no bar on cohabiting couples marrying.
Moreover, if the minister does refuse or accept they can be removed from their position by the leity of the parish. It may be that there are some communities where they tell their minister not to marry cohabiting couples but I would expect that to be very, very rare and in such hard c conservative communities most will already be Wee Free or similar offshoot.' 'I can assure you that there are some Ministers - I am talking about England & Wales here - who would not knowingly marry couples who had aleady had full sexual relations with each other. At the end of the day 'chastity before marriage' is what the Christian Churches are supposed to believe in! Of course many find it impossible to live by that principle but surely such people should not expect the Church to facilitate the hypocrisy of a white wedding. By turning a blind eye the Churches imply that their principles count for nothing and that moral laisser-faire rules ok! As for Ministers refusing to marry cohabiting couples being very, very rare I would respectfully suggest that until - say - the 1980s it was very rare for cohabiting couples to marry in church at all! '
'Chastity before marriage has, surely always been fairly unusual, except among people where it was essential to be assured that the first child was that of the husband. I'm pretty sure that in some parts of theese islands some evidence of the brides fertility ws needed before marriage. '
Until about the mid-1960s it was surely very much the norm in British society and people who failed to abide by it were rather looked down upon. I would admit that there was an element of sexist double standards operating in that there was a degree of acceptance in some quarters for blokes to 'sow their wild oats' whilst women were expected to remain pure and chaste. But I remember even as late as the mid-1970s when I was at University that when a couple had been 'courting' for an extended period of 12 to 18 months there was no assumption that they were having a full sexual relationship. People used to speculate out of curiosity but no more than that. Some were - others were not. I was a member of the Anglican & Methodist Society there, and recall the shock and red faces when a girl had to give up in her second year on account of being pregnant by her boyfriend from home! There was certainly a strong sense of embarrassment and disgrace re that business - ie 'How could she?'
If justin was born before 1978 he is, de jure born in the Kingdom of England. His status if born after 1978 is more open to interpretation of the Interpretation Act 1978 which defined England as being a certain geography and Wales as being a certain distinct geography.
However the Interpretation Act did not dis-establish the concept of England and Wales which still exists and can be taken to be the Kingdom of England to this day.
Con + LD + DUP would crawl over the line [317] as a minority government
Lab + LD + SNP [305 + 41 conditional support] would be a nightmare: not sure why the LD would want to put themselves in the middle of that...
Straws and clutching comes to mind with your logic here. Tories plus LD's plus DUP needs to be comfortably over 325 to stand a chance of any kind of stability.
I've had enough of minnow's like Survation and Opinium. Time to bring on the big gun's like ICM and Mori.
As a political bettor I really wonder whether any of the polling companies have a clue. The pitfalls of adjustments bedevil them all, and it's precisely those adjustments that they can't know when to throw out.
As things stand I think we're on course for a wafer thin Tory win, SNP to have almost total domination in Scotland, LD's to have sufficient numbers to be easily able to book a table in a restaurant, and the Greens to be sufficient to form a meeting.
This isn't aimed at you.
But I heard the same arguments levelled against the pollsters during the lead up to the Indyref.
By and large, most of them got the result well within the margin of error.
Whilst I understand the difference between a FPTP election and a referendum with a binary choice, that gives me confidence that most of the pollsters will get this election right.
Short term memory loss and all that but "well" within the margin of error? IIRC the actual No lead was 11% - how many of the polls were reasonably close?
Ipsos Mori had No of 53, Survation had them on 53 also, Panelbase had them on 52, Ditto YouGov, all within the MoE
If it were all MoE in the pre indy ref polls around September then we should have seen a number of polls on the other side of the 45/55% figure; something like 42%/58% or suchlike. Apart from Jacks MacARSE I cannot recall one like that. And Jacks final MacARSE was more than a month off the poll.
Which leaves two possibilities: either the polls systemically underestimated the NO vote over a prolonged period and by all pollsters, or there was a genuine final day shift to NO, too late for pollsters to pick up.
Gadfly posted earlier today a little graph showing final week swings to the Tories in the last 5 elections, the same could be said of these. Even the exit polls in 1992 failed to pick up the strength of Tory support. Pollsters have tried to fix this of course, but it is highly moot that they have done so.
I've had enough of minnow's like Survation and Opinium. Time to bring on the big gun's like ICM and Mori.
As a political bettor I really wonder whether any of the polling companies have a clue. The pitfalls of adjustments bedevil them all, and it's precisely those adjustments that they can't know when to throw out.
As things stand I think we're on course for a wafer thin Tory win, SNP to have almost total domination in Scotland, LD's to have sufficient numbers to be easily able to book a table in a restaurant, and the Greens to be sufficient to form a meeting.
This isn't aimed at you.
But I heard the same arguments levelled against the pollsters during the lead up to the Indyref.
By and large, most of them got the result well within the margin of error.
Whilst I understand the difference between a FPTP election and a referendum with a binary choice, that gives me confidence that most of the pollsters will get this election right.
Short term memory loss and all that but "well" within the margin of error? IIRC the actual No lead was 11% - how many of the polls were reasonably close?
Ipsos Mori had No of 53, Survation had them on 53 also, Panelbase had them on 52, Ditto YouGov, all within the MoE
If it were all MoE in the pre indy ref polls around September then we should have seen a number of polls on the other side of the 45/55% figure; something like 42%/58% or suchlike. Apart from Jacks MacARSE I cannot recall one like that. And Jacks final MacARSE was more than a month off the poll.
Which leaves two possibilities: either the polls systemically underestimated the NO vote over a prolonged period and by all pollsters, or there was a genuine final day shift to NO, too late for pollsters to pick up.
Gadfly posted earlier today a little graph showing final week swings to the Tories in the last 5 elections, the same could be said of these. Even the exit polls in 1992 failed to pick up the strength of Tory support. Pollsters have tried to fix this of course, but it is highly moot that they have done so.
I wonder how muc of these late swings are down to people not voting and/or people being polled who aren't on the register.
If justin was born before 1978 he is, de jure born in the Kingdom of England. His status if born after 1978 is more open to interpretation of the Interpretation Act 1978 which defined England as being a certain geography and Wales as being a certain distinct geography.
However the Interpretation Act did not dis-establish the concept of England and Wales which still exists and can be taken to be the Kingdom of England to this day.
I bow to your superior knowledge. I thought you were getting confused with Monmouthshire.
Anyway isn't Berwick still at war with Russia or something because it was left off some treaty in the eighteenth century when it wasn't officially Scottish or English. Or am I just making that up?
Any reports on UKIP activity in general. In my seat they seem to have gone missing since the campaign kicked off.
600 candidates are essentially on their own, 3 are having the kitchen sink thrown at them, 20 or so others are very active and positive.
I'm a member of UKIP, we do what we can. About 12 of us across two constituencies, we stand in the streets of shopping areas and at the train stations handing out leaflets and chatting to people. We've also hand delivered letters to people who voted last year in the Euro and council elections, using the marked register. We don't have much money, our budget is only £800, we raise a few quid by charging members £2 for tea. coffee & biscuits when we have branch meetings, we had an Xmas party and raffle and we've had a few local donations. Membership fees go straight to head office. Our two candidates have paid their own £500 deposits, they have absolutely no chance of winning, but they should both get over 5% and so get their money back.
Until about the mid-1960s it was surely very much the norm in British society and people who failed to abide by it were rather looked down upon.'
This seems to be your problem.
The aberrant period between circa 1880 and 1960 was not normal for British Society outside of certain social mores (not church mores) of the elite upper classes. The idea of cohabitation was not frowned upon or even remotely remarkable before teh late 19th Century.
All we have done is return to the normal, standard social practices of history.
Our local priest refused to marry my sister and her husband for that very reason. Dug his heels in. It ended up with him being sick on the day, and the local Bishop standing in (all prearranged, naturally!)
Charles May I ask when that was?
2008.
It was a little more complicated than that: it is a rural church with one priest shared across three parishes. The priest wanted to close our church, because it was more traditional than he liked (his excuse was that his time was better spent ministering to the poor), but our family teamed up with the local squire to make sure that he wasn't able to do so.
That is actually very recent in these terms. I really take my hat off to Clergy who take a principled stand rather than just going with the flow for a quiet life. It is a pity that the Archbishop of Canterbury - then Rowan Williams - failed to take the golden opportunity presented by William & Kate's wedding in 2011 to make the same point. Moreover, though she would never have said so in public I rather suspect that the Queen would have agreed with him!
It was a pathetic excuse by a stupid little man.
He first tried to argue that she had no connection to the parish because she lived in London (ignoring the fact that she had moved into the parish aged 4 and our parents still lived there).
Then he tried the pre-marital excuse.
He then tried to push the squire's wife off the parish council (forgetting that she had been a churchwarden for 30 years and her husband owned the church)
He is no longer the priest.
He sounds like an odious little man.
One of my cousins got married in a rural church in Derbyshire that was so little used, that the last wedding to be held there was that of her own parents, thirty-odd years earlier. They're wondering if one of their own children will be the next one ...
I've had enough of minnow's like Survation and Opinium. Time to bring on the big gun's like ICM and Mori.
As a political bettor I really wonder whether any of the polling companies have a clue. The pitfalls of adjustments bedevil them all, and it's precisely those adjustments that they can't know when to throw out.
As things stand I think we're on course for a wafer thin Tory win, SNP to have almost total domination in Scotland, LD's to have sufficient numbers to be easily able to book a table in a restaurant, and the Greens to be sufficient to form a meeting.
This isn't aimed at you.
But I heard the same arguments levelled against the pollsters during the lead up to the Indyref.
By and large, most of them got the result well within the margin of error.
Whilst I understand the difference between a FPTP election and a referendum with a binary choice, that gives me confidence that most of the pollsters will get this election right.
Short term memory loss and all that but "well" within the margin of error? IIRC the actual No lead was 11% - how many of the polls were reasonably close?
Ipsos Mori had No of 53, Survation had them on 53 also, Panelbase had them on 52, Ditto YouGov, all within the MoE
If it were all MoE in the pre indy ref polls around September then we should have seen a number of polls on the other side of the 45/55% figure; something like 42%/58% or suchlike. Apart from Jacks MacARSE I cannot recall one like that. And Jacks final MacARSE was more than a month off the poll.
Which leaves two possibilities: either the polls systemically underestimated the NO vote over a prolonged period and by all pollsters, or there was a genuine final day shift to NO, too late for pollsters to pick up.
Gadfly posted earlier today a little graph showing final week swings to the Tories in the last 5 elections, the same could be said of these. Even the exit polls in 1992 failed to pick up the strength of Tory support. Pollsters have tried to fix this of course, but it is highly moot that they have done so.
The pollsters would of been closer if turnout had been the same throughout Scotland. It was the much lower turnout in Yes voting Glasgow that made it 55% No rather than 54 or 53% Not sure if the pollster could/would of factored in the inevitable lower turnout from the biggest electoral area.
'Yesterday night I went to some friends for dinner and as I left I asked who they thought would win the election? They answered that Labour had a huge problem.
"What" I asked?
"Their leader is rubbish".
Make your mind up ,yesterday you were telling us of Eds' love-in.
'I've just heard from some people who met Ed in Edinburgh this evening and they said 'he's quite delightful'. That's enough for me. I think things might turn in Scotland'
On a more scientific basis what is the feedback from your barber & most recent taxi driver?
I'm going to ask my Aunt Doris. She'll know for sure
No need - I have settled this in a rigorous scientific experiment.
My German Shepherd Heidi, the Canine Prognosticator, went out this morning for her usual dump in my back yard.
An hour later, about a foot away from her morning movement I put a photo of Ed Miliband with a dog biscuit on it. I then let her out. She sniffed the dog biscuit and then went to sniff her dump, and would have eaten it if I hadn't stopped her in the nick of time.
What is now self-evident is that the pledges on NHS spending and IHT demonstrate that the major Tory election offensive to shape the campaign is now under way. Will there be more before the official manifesto launch on Tuesday? Will it have any impact?
Going to be a decisive week. But at least we're on the move.
Headline analysis: CON message getting over well as LAB campaign descends into incoherence LAB doing well in London but no enthusiasm for LAB elsewhere in England Opposition to SNP arrogance grows in Scotland - SNP set to significantly underperform current polls LD doing well in their own seats
Latest projection (change from Tues 07 April): CON 311 +1 LAB 264 +2 LD 34 +2 SNP 18 -5 PC 3 GRN 1 UKIP 1 NI 18
Part 1 of the equation, requiring the Tories to take 2% off UKIP may be taking place, but Part 2 , involving the LibDems taking 2% off Labour also has to happen before Dave & Co. have any chance of winning the GE. Meanwhile, Chris Hanretty & Others' latest 2015 UK Parliamentary Election Forecast shows Labour on 277 seats, just 4 seats behind the Tories on 281. Interestingly, this projection also shows UKIP winning just one very lonely seat, in sharp contrast to some of the smartest bettors on PB.com who rate the Purples a buy on 5 seats.
blockquote>
Mark Reckless? Hated by Tories?
I find that hard to believe
*Innocent Face*
I've been shocked at some of the language I've heard used about him.
I also took no pleasure in writing a PB thread header, quoting a Tory MP who said
on Mark Reckless defecting: "I can't say the word c**t but he's a f**king c**t who deserves a hot poker up his arse."
The notion that UKIP might only get 1 seat has got me worried. Back in March 2013 I got, via beards, £200 on at 8/1 with Hills that UKIP would get more than one seat. This has been my big banker - guaranteed winnings it seemed. Alas that might not be the case.
I have a feeling that a shock defeat of Nigel Farage could be the story of election night.
I also got a text today from a close friend who (although a life-long sympathesiser) has only just joined the Conservatives in the past 12 months. He lives in Tonbridge and is getting a lot of encouragement (pressure?) from his local association to get actively involved and help in Rochester and Strood.
The Tories really are throwing absolutely everything at Reckless. He is hated.
Mark Reckless? Hated by Tories?
I find that hard to believe
*Innocent Face*
I've been shocked at some of the language I've heard used about him.
I also took no pleasure in writing a PB thread header, quoting a Tory MP who said
on Mark Reckless defecting: "I can't say the word c**t but he's a f**king c**t who deserves a hot poker up his arse."
No pleasure whatsoever.
Honest
I take it this Tory MP went to a private boarding school where such activities are quite normal !
I've had enough of minnow's like Survation and Opinium. Time to bring on the big gun's like ICM and Mori.
As a political bettor I really wonder whether any of the polling companies have a clue. The pitfalls of adjustments bedevil them all, and it's precisely those adjustments that they can't know when to throw out.
As things stand I think we're on course for a wafer thin Tory win, SNP to have almost total domination in Scotland, LD's to have sufficient numbers to be easily able to book a table in a restaurant, and the Greens to be sufficient to form a meeting.
This isn't aimed at you.
But I heard the same arguments levelled against the pollsters during the lead up to the Indyref.
By and large, most of them got the result well within the margin of error.
Whilst I understand the difference between a FPTP election and a referendum with a binary choice, that gives me confidence that most of the pollsters will get this election right.
OK lets have a bet.
I will pledge to postfix your name with "(the proven wise man)" whenever I refer to you post election if the pollsters get it right, and you will agree likewise. I'm happy that you can be the judge of the result, but I'd suggest perhaps +/- 3.5% for any party?
I said some of the pollsters.
OK, I can't see that quote.
I thought my +/- 3.5% was a pretty fair line. Where would you choose to place it?
@JohnRentoul: Twitter is awash with people who think owners of houses worth £325k to £1m are "not rich". (£325k the current inheritance tax threshold.)
If justin was born before 1978 he is, de jure born in the Kingdom of England. His status if born after 1978 is more open to interpretation of the Interpretation Act 1978 which defined England as being a certain geography and Wales as being a certain distinct geography.
However the Interpretation Act did not dis-establish the concept of England and Wales which still exists and can be taken to be the Kingdom of England to this day.
I bow to your superior knowledge. I thought you were getting confused with Monmouthshire.
Anyway isn't Berwick still at war with Russia or something because it was left off some treaty in the eighteenth century when it wasn't officially Scottish or English. Or am I just making that up?
Berwick was incorporated into England and Wales by the Berwick and Wales Act 1746 and into England under the Interpretation Act 1978. The status of these acts in terms of the Treaty and Acts of Union is open to its own interpretation, although that is not likely to be of any issue until the Union is dissolved.
'I see Andy Murray has got married in Dunblane Cathedral.Apparently in Scotland it is being treated as the wedding of the year. Find it strange that a couple that have been ‘living in sin’ for over six years end up having a white church wedding. It seems rather hypocritical and it surprises me that the clergy agree to carry out such services the effect of which is to bring the church into disrepute.'
Pulupstar 'Christ that's out the fifties playbook ! '
It's actually nothing of the kind. Churches would not have behaved like this in the 70s and 80s.
CoS first ordained a female minister in 1969. It has always been far more progessive than the psuedo-Roman church down south.
The sun always shines in Brigadoon. And Balamoray.
@JohnRentoul: Twitter is awash with people who think owners of houses worth £325k to £1m are "not rich". (£325k the current inheritance tax threshold.)
According to some charities with their flawed measure of inequality and poverty, £350k home, they are super super stinking rich.
I've had enough of minnow's like Survation and Opinium. Time to bring on the big gun's like ICM and Mori.
As a political bettor I really wonder whether any of the polling companies have a clue. The pitfalls of adjustments bedevil them all, and it's precisely those adjustments that they can't know when to throw out.
As things stand I think we're on course for a wafer thin Tory win, SNP to have almost total domination in Scotland, LD's to have sufficient numbers to be easily able to book a table in a restaurant, and the Greens to be sufficient to form a meeting.
This isn't aimed at you.
But I heard the same arguments levelled against the pollsters during the lead up to the Indyref.
By and large, most of them got the result well within the margin of error.
Whilst I understand the difference between a FPTP election and a referendum with a binary choice, that gives me confidence that most of the pollsters will get this election right.
Short term memory loss and all that but "well" within the margin of error? IIRC the actual No lead was 11% - how many of the polls were reasonably close?
Ipsos Mori had No of 53, Survation had them on 53 also, Panelbase had them on 52, Ditto YouGov, all within the MoE
If it were all MoE in the pre indy ref polls around September then we should have seen a number of polls on the other side of the 45/55% figure; something like 42%/58% or suchlike. Apart from Jacks MacARSE I cannot recall
The pollsters would of been closer if turnout had been the same throughout Scotland. It was the much lower turnout in Yes voting Glasgow that made it 55% No rather than 54 or 53% Not sure if the pollster could/would of factored in the inevitable lower turnout from the biggest electoral area.
It may be part of the issue, but as I recall more local polls did not differ much from the Scotland wide polls.
I believe there was also a shy No factor, just as there may well be shy voters for other parties now.
UKIP and Greens have a much larger membership but little experience of campaigning. Farage is doing the standing in pubs photocalls that failed in 6 previous Westminster elections.
The SNP is different, they do have a lot of new members but ran a good (though ultimatly unsuccessful) campaign last year. Both Sturgeon and Davidson did well at the debates too because of recent experience. To put it in football terms they are the only ones who are match fit.
@David_Cameron: The home that you've worked and saved for belongs to you and your family. We'll help you pass it on to your children. http://t.co/UKw0CVTBwZ
Comments
I hate Reckless, because he ruined my plans one Saturday afternoon last September
Perversely, it's rural Conservative associations in the Shires that tend to be the most resilient and have the most members, so they have a lot of groundworkers to drawn upon. You fight where you think you can win.
I expect there are also strong defensive campaigns in Thanet North, Thanet South, Dover, Castle Point, and Basildon South and Thurrock East.
Thurrock will be fought but sounds like it's probably been written off by CCHQ.
Con 34% Lab 34% UKIP 13% LD 7% Greens 6% SNP 5%
My daughter, who died early last year, has, my granddaughter reports, had a letter from David Cameron urging her to vote Tory!
I will pledge to postfix your name with "(the proven wise man)" whenever I refer to you post election if the pollsters get it right, and you will agree likewise. I'm happy that you can be the judge of the result, but I'd suggest perhaps +/- 3.5% for any party?
charles hymas @charleshymas 1m1 minute ago
#Sundaytimes #yougov Tories and Labour still neck and neck tonight: Con 34% Lab 34% Ukip 13% LD 7% Green 6% SNP 5% Others 1%
EICIPM
There could be an under the radar shock, just as there almost was with Heywood & Middleton.
The service was in a Church Scotland establishment.
The clergy in Scotland have NO SAY in how the church is run. It is run by lay people. Their position depends on the goodwill of lay people. The policy is decided by lay people.
'Yesterday night I went to some friends for dinner and as I left I asked who they thought would win the election? They answered that Labour had a huge problem.
"What" I asked?
"Their leader is rubbish".
Make your mind up ,yesterday you were telling us of Eds' love-in.
'I've just heard from some people who met Ed in Edinburgh this evening and they said 'he's quite delightful'. That's enough for me. I think things might turn in Scotland'
On a more scientific basis what is the feedback from your barber & most recent taxi driver?
He first tried to argue that she had no connection to the parish because she lived in London (ignoring the fact that she had moved into the parish aged 4 and our parents still lived there).
Then he tried the pre-marital excuse.
He then tried to push the squire's wife off the parish council (forgetting that she had been a churchwarden for 30 years and her husband owned the church)
He is no longer the priest.
On their wedding night, she asks him to be gentle, as she is a virgin.
Enraged, he makes her dress, then drives her back to her family home.
He tells her father that if she wasn't good enough for her brother, then she certainly isn't good enough for him...
Reckless did not.
on Mark Reckless defecting: "I can't say the word c**t but he's a f**king c**t who deserves a hot poker up his arse."
No pleasure whatsoever.
Honest
Where there are people, there are politics. Church politics is phrased a bit differently, but the issues are often surprisingly similar. The Free Presbyterians re-merged with the Orthodox Presbyterians in the 1920's as the issue was no longer so strongly felt, and later merged in England with the Congregationalists to form the URC.
If the average of the polls all show a statistical tie all the way to polling day (a big if) then they'd still be within the MoE if the Tories beat Labour on GB votes by 2-3%.
Whether that would be enough for Cameron to stay in power, or not, is another matter.
These have EICIPM again
https://twitter.com/ShippersUnbound/status/586989496341762048
Not terribly impressive would you not agree? And wouldn't Panelbase and YouGov be right at the edge of MoE rather than well within it?
'If Labour are going to fine people for the perfectly legal act of tax avoidance, would they please list all the other perfectly legal activities they intend to fine us for?'
Will it include Deeds of Variation?
Con + LD + DUP would crawl over the line [317] as a minority government
Lab + LD + SNP [305 + 41 conditional support] would be a nightmare: not sure why the LD would want to put themselves in the middle of that...
I suspect he tried to shoehorn this into the last coalition budget, but negotiations failed at the last minute, which is why sounded so notably devoid of sparkle last month.
religious studies was my favourite class at school by a mile, largely due to an excellent teacher. Recall the order of commandments can be tricky, hence this tale we were told.
A priest was making his rounds in his bicycle, visiting members of the parish, ensuring all was well. He emerged from one house, and his bike was nowhere to be seen. He scowled, and resolved to make that day's sermon about the eighth commandment.
As he got into the pulpit, he ran down the list of commandments, but when he reached the seventh he suddenly remembered where he'd left his bicycle.
'The Church of Scotland elsewhere in Scotland, I understand, refuses to marry people who have been living together for the past 30 days. However it will marry them if, although they been living together or a year or more, they separate for the 30 days prior to the wedding!'
'A minister has the right to choose who they do and do not marry, however this should follow the guidelines set out by the general assembly, which as far as I know have absolutely no bar on cohabiting couples marrying.
Moreover, if the minister does refuse or accept they can be removed from their position by the leity of the parish. It may be that there are some communities where they tell their minister not to marry cohabiting couples but I would expect that to be very, very rare and in such hard c conservative communities most will already be Wee Free or similar offshoot.'
'I can assure you that there are some Ministers - I am talking about England & Wales here - who would not knowingly marry couples who had aleady had full sexual relations with each other. At the end of the day 'chastity before marriage' is what the Christian Churches are supposed to believe in! Of course many find it impossible to live by that principle but surely such people should not expect the Church to facilitate the hypocrisy of a white wedding. By turning a blind eye the Churches imply that their principles count for nothing and that moral laisser-faire rules ok!
As for Ministers refusing to marry cohabiting couples being very, very rare I would respectfully suggest that until - say - the 1980s it was very rare for cohabiting couples to marry in church at all!
'
'Chastity before marriage has, surely always been fairly unusual, except among people where it was essential to be assured that the first child was that of the husband. I'm pretty sure that in some parts of theese islands some evidence of the brides fertility ws needed before marriage. '
Until about the mid-1960s it was surely very much the norm in British society and people who failed to abide by it were rather looked down upon. I would admit that there was an element of sexist double standards operating in that there was a degree of acceptance in some quarters for blokes to 'sow their wild oats' whilst women were expected to remain pure and chaste. But I remember even as late as the mid-1970s when I was at University that when a couple had been 'courting' for an extended period of 12 to 18 months there was no assumption that they were having a full sexual relationship. People used to speculate out of curiosity but no more than that. Some were - others were not. I was a member of the Anglican & Methodist Society there, and recall the shock and red faces when a girl had to give up in her second year on account of being pregnant by her boyfriend from home! There was certainly a strong sense of embarrassment and disgrace re that business - ie 'How could she?'
However the Interpretation Act did not dis-establish the concept of England and Wales which still exists and can be taken to be the Kingdom of England to this day.
Which leaves two possibilities: either the polls systemically underestimated the NO vote over a prolonged period and by all pollsters, or there was a genuine final day shift to NO, too late for pollsters to pick up.
Gadfly posted earlier today a little graph showing final week swings to the Tories in the last 5 elections, the same could be said of these. Even the exit polls in 1992 failed to pick up the strength of Tory support. Pollsters have tried to fix this of course, but it is highly moot that they have done so.
Anyway isn't Berwick still at war with Russia or something because it was left off some treaty in the eighteenth century when it wasn't officially Scottish or English. Or am I just making that up?
We've also hand delivered letters to people who voted last year in the Euro and council elections, using the marked register.
We don't have much money, our budget is only £800, we raise a few quid by charging members £2 for tea. coffee & biscuits when we have branch meetings, we had an Xmas party and raffle and we've had a few local donations. Membership fees go straight to head office.
Our two candidates have paid their own £500 deposits, they have absolutely no chance of winning, but they should both get over 5% and so get their money back.
The aberrant period between circa 1880 and 1960 was not normal for British Society outside of certain social mores (not church mores) of the elite upper classes. The idea of cohabitation was not frowned upon or even remotely remarkable before teh late 19th Century.
All we have done is return to the normal, standard social practices of history.
One of my cousins got married in a rural church in Derbyshire that was so little used, that the last wedding to be held there was that of her own parents, thirty-odd years earlier. They're wondering if one of their own children will be the next one ...
Will this play out as...
1. fat cat banker, send him home
2. Ed hates the Governor of the Bank of England, not fit to be PM
My German Shepherd Heidi, the Canine Prognosticator, went out this morning for her usual dump in my back yard.
An hour later, about a foot away from her morning movement I put a photo of Ed Miliband with a dog biscuit on it. I then let her out. She sniffed the dog biscuit and then went to sniff her dump, and would have eaten it if I hadn't stopped her in the nick of time.
Conclusion - HSEIC - Heidi says Ed Is Crap.
QED
You can't argue with science .....
Going to be a decisive week. But at least we're on the move.
Headline analysis:
CON message getting over well as LAB campaign descends into incoherence
LAB doing well in London but no enthusiasm for LAB elsewhere in England
Opposition to SNP arrogance grows in Scotland - SNP set to significantly underperform current polls
LD doing well in their own seats
Latest projection (change from Tues 07 April):
CON 311 +1
LAB 264 +2
LD 34 +2
SNP 18 -5
PC 3
GRN 1
UKIP 1
NI 18
Mr. DeClare, good for you. Not politically active beyond voting, but the more people who are, the better.
I thought my +/- 3.5% was a pretty fair line. Where would you choose to place it?
Con 34% Lab 34% LD 7% UKIP 13% Greens 6% SNP 5%
Had William Hague with us today. He was very urbane.... Maybe he's just demob happy?
Mr. Eagles, that's very close to my own predictions in the guessing game.
My prediction was for an adjustment to council tax with extra council tax bands. Instead, pension allowances have been raided again:
Conservatives 5
Labour 3
SNP 2
Ukip 1
Even PB Tories disagree the man is an idiot
So I'm off to write the morning thread.
All these policy announcements this evening means the morning thread is unlikely to be on the topic of AV.
Yes, I share your disappointment.
https://twitter.com/ShippersUnbound/status/586987623702470656
UKPR.
'£325,175 *2 is £650,350 methinks!!
Hopefully your career in the NHS had no connection with finance.
@faisalislam: ..That Labour has instead spent on reducing up front fees for future mainly middle class graduates ... 2/2
I believe there was also a shy No factor, just as there may well be shy voters for other parties now.
UKIP and Greens have a much larger membership but little experience of campaigning. Farage is doing the standing in pubs photocalls that failed in 6 previous Westminster elections.
The SNP is different, they do have a lot of new members but ran a good (though ultimatly unsuccessful) campaign last year. Both Sturgeon and Davidson did well at the debates too because of recent experience. To put it in football terms they are the only ones who are match fit.