Sorry to harp on with the same point, but this illustrates how fixed opinions are, and have been for months. The Tory and Labour votes are solidly dug in and have settled that they're not voting for the other lot. So even when there's a major story - like the manifestos - the two blocs go "meh" and nothing much changes. I'm not convinced that any of the polls that have excityed us were more than random variation around a deadlock.
Given the suspicion in which Balls and Umunna are held by the Miliband inner circle, it is by no means certain that they would retain their briefs in Miliband’s first cabinet. This in turn would create one of the great uncertainties of a Miliband premiership: neither he nor anyone around him has any experience in business. For all their bright ideas about what companies could do for them, they haven’t a clue whether their various means of exerting pressure will work — or what unintended consequences may follow. One head of a FTSE100 company recently granted a rare audience with the putative First Lord of the Treasury sat dumbstruck as Miliband asked him, ‘Why exactly do you need to pay your shareholders dividends?’
Source? I thought not.
Blimey, give him a chance.
It's a perfectly reasonable question, anyway. It's not like he asked who The Beatles were.
Of course shareholders expect a return, but if you are discussing how capitalism works from first principles, asking why that return should come as a regular dividend (for some companies a totemic amount unrelated to performance or profitability) is a fair one. Plenty of companies don't pay a dividend - not just Chinese ones. One might follow the Warren Buffett principle that in ordinary times if I have invested my money in a company, and it generates a surplus, it should deploy that money to grow the company I thought was worth investing in.
(and from an entirely venal perspective, dividends attract a chunk of tax for even the small investor. Capital appreciation doesn't - so reinvested dividends are a wildly inefficient way of growing my investment in a profitable company).
Shes so easy to loath. The whole back story about her being one of the poor and oppressed, having lived on the hard streets in a council house in her youth. Yeah. Her father was Assistant Secretary General of the UN, not uncommon on council estates, im sure. And then she used her brother as cover, telling us he is a white van driving man of toil. In a greasy spoon cafe with his work gear on and reflective jacket. Except, again, we find out that this was a little bit made up. He actually markets himself normally as a photo journalist specialising in aids activism. Just like most builders.
If YG is heavily biased towards political anoraks - which it seems it is from the post-debate poll - it is perhaps unsurprising that it moves very little.
"ITV NEWS SOUTH WEST LIB DEM / TORY BATTLEGROUNDS Poll of voters for living in Liberal Democrat seats where the Conservatives are in second place, in the South West of England, for ITV News."
This is what my latest forecast (made earlier today, and taking account of the previous Ashcroft polls) currently expects SW England to look like after the election: Prediction for SW England
I'm currently predicting 27 LibDem seats overall. That ComRes poll should be making the LibDems very nervous indeed!
Love the presentation, except that the orangey-yellow for the LD score is almost unreadable against the grey background. Are you going to incorporate this ComRes into your model?
I'm certainly considering it. At the very least I think I need to consider how the LibDem vote in the SW may have devolved since the earlier Ashcroft polls in the region.
I meant to add this chart, showing the Ashcroft polls in the SW: Ashcroft Polls (SW England) Still some orange on his map (if rather indistinct/marginal in places) Of course, the brighter orange is an older poll.
Wow, first he accepts he won't be in any departmental role in the next parliament (though he likely imagines for a different reason than we know will be the reason), now Clegg is talking sense again:
Lib Dem leader Nick Clegg has insisted it is "ludicrous" to question whether a Liberal Democrat candidate filmed at a strip club on his stag night was fit to be an MP.
The problem with putting new policies in your manifesto is that they got washed over with other manifestos- we had the Greens yesterday, and the LD's and UKIP today. I doubt anyone can keep up with any of them. It is not like the budget which gets complete media attention for 2 or 3 days. And tomorrow we have the debate which is another narrative changer which in likelihood will be overtaken by events at the weekend. And before we all know it, we are back at square one.
@AdamWilson_96: Do SNP have any economic credibility left. Now they are not wanting FFA autonomy and they now agree Barnett is best for Scotland.
NICOLA Sturgeon has appeared to back down on proposals for full fiscal autonomy for Scotland after days of criticism over a £7.6 billion black hole it would create in Scottish finances.
First Minister said she wants to keep the Barnett formula which provides 20 per cent more funding for Scots than England and Wales in reaction to a Ukip manifesto pledge to scrap it, while pushing back the proposed introduction of full fiscal autonomy.
Sorry to harp on with the same point, but this illustrates how fixed opinions are, and have been for months. The Tory and Labour votes are solidly due in and have settled that they're not voting for the other lot. So even when there's a major story - like the manifestos - the two blocs go "meh" and nothing much changes. I'm not convinced that any of the polls that have excityed us were more than random variation around a deadlock.
You'd have more credibility with this point had you not made exactly the same one 6 months ago, for well over a year, regularly highlighting how Labour had had a consistent 3-4% lead for "simply ages".
[i]"ITV NEWS SOUTH WEST LIB DEM / TORY BATTLEGROUNDS Poll of voters for living in Liberal Democrat seats where the Conservatives are in second place, in the South West of England, for ITV News."[/i]
Contrasts sharply with most of Ashcroft's findings in the SW.
I'm not sure it does.
I agree it does not conflict with Ashcroft. Look at his first question numbers for SW LIB / CON seats they are pretty much identical with Comres. The issue is whether the second constituency question is a valid polling method, there are arguments both ways, we shall have to wait 3 weeks to find out.
The question asks In your constituency, thinking about yr mp tho
It also has tiny sample sets in each constituency, around 70, whereas Ashcroft has around a 1000 in each constituency, to do the same Comres would need a sample size of around 14,000. I am not sure comparing the two types of poll is really valid. One looks at a certain number of seats spread over a large area. The result is perfectly valid in its own terms but can we really draw too many conclusions? The other uses a bigger sample in a specific area asking a set of specific questions, I have my doubts about the way the second question is asked but the results do match up both with national polling and also local feeling
All the talk of the Liberal Democrats providing the heart for the Conservatives and the brains for Labour led me to look again at The Wizard of Oz. Towards the end of the film Dorothy accuses the Wizard of being a very bad man. 'Oh no' he says ' I am a very good man. I'm just a very bad wizard.' I think we could say the same about Nick Clegg - a very good man but a very bad politician.
Clegg made a huge mistake in not choosing to run a major department. Getting Business and Energy was an astonishingly bad for the Lib Dems to strike on the coalition.
I hope they don't charge too much for these polls. Seems a waste of money on what is either something to fuel your denial or something you can hopefully use to convince people you do have a chance, in defiance of all reason, but I find it hard to believe in the presence of such massive national polling swings that anyone could believe them.
All the talk of the Liberal Democrats providing the heart for the Conservatives and the brains for Labour led me to look again at The Wizard of Oz. Towards the end of the film Dorothy accuses the Wizard of being a very bad man. 'Oh no' he says ' I am a very good man. I'm just a very bad wizard.' I think we could say the same about Nick Clegg - a very good man but a very bad politician.
Who managed to get his party into power (sort of) and himself to DPM?
If YG is heavily biased towards political anoraks - which it seems it is from the post-debate poll - it is perhaps unsurprising that it moves very little.
Yougov had the Tories as high as 37% only twelve days ago.
The Conservative vote share seems to wax and wane off the back of how the UKIP and blue LD numbers are stacking up. The question is how that settles down on the day.
One ray of hope for the Conservatives is the Ashcroft constituency poll evidence of an increasing squeeze of UKIP voting intention in the key marginals, in the Conservatives favour.
However, that won't be enough to see the Tories back in government alone.
Yep the manifestos have done nothing at all to change the landscape. Not particularly surprising given the skeptical reaction to the Tories giveaways and the nothingness of the Labour offer.
Any hope of anyone winning an overall majority is gone. Tories maj odds are drifting like crazy tonight on Betfair as NOM appears ready to dive into the 1.0x range. The poll numbers show no sign of shifting at all with now entrenched views of the electorate. All we can is hope the Conservatives can win enough seats to be part of the next coalition that keeps Miliband and Sturgeon out. I'm not even sure they can manage that despite headline betfair markets continuing to show remarkable resistance.
Sorry to harp on with the same point, but this illustrates how fixed opinions are, and have been for months. The Tory and Labour votes are solidly dug in and have settled that they're not voting for the other lot. So even when there's a major story - like the manifestos - the two blocs go "meh" and nothing much changes. I'm not convinced that any of the polls that have excityed us were more than random variation around a deadlock.
Also look at the TV news ratings - they are pretty low. BBC1 10pm down to 3.5m on Mon (Lab manifesto launch).
No BBC figures yet for yesterday but ITV1 10pm got a pitiful 1.1m.
I know some will say people get news now on the web but in my view very, very few people actively seek out news anywhere. The BBC and ITV news programmes get their ratings because they are the main two channels and people watch their news in a passive way - ie they've got the TV on anyway.
In my view all of the above points to approx 75% of people taking literally almost zero interest in what any politician says. Coupled with Individual Voter Registration I think it all points to low turnout - as a % of population.
Finally it also increases the risk of YouGov not being representative - because the YouGov panel is much more likely to be following political events more closely than the average person.
Sorry to harp on with the same point, but this illustrates how fixed opinions are, and have been for months. The Tory and Labour votes are solidly due in and have settled that they're not voting for the other lot. So even when there's a major story - like the manifestos - the two blocs go "meh" and nothing much changes. I'm not convinced that any of the polls that have excityed us were more than random variation around a deadlock.
You'd have more credibility with this point had you not made exactly the same one 6 months ago, for well over a year, regularly highlighting how Labour had had a consistent 3-4% lead for "simply ages".
To be fair to Nick, he has been saying level pegging through the recent polling volatility.
I didn't answer you yesterday but the red meat stuff in the Labour manifesto- non doms, zero contracts, 50p tax rate, energy freeze is minimalist. And the red meat in the Tory- tax allowances, IHT, and free vote of fox hunting is meagre. Each party is playing to its base in language only but in reality is tinkering at the margins; the difference now between these two broadly western european christian democrat (or social democrat) parties is negligible.
The likes of you and me might like to think there is an ideological gap- in reality it doesn't matter really one jot.
Yep the manifestos have done nothing at all to change the landscape. Not particularly surprising given the skeptical reaction to the Tories giveaways and the nothingness of the Labour offer.
Any hope of anyone winning an overall majority is gone. Tories maj odds are drifting like crazy tonight on Betfair as NOM appears ready to dive into the 1.0x range. The poll numbers show no sign of shifting at all with now entrenched views of the electorate. All we can is hope the Conservatives can win enough seats to be part of the next coalition that keeps Miliband and Sturgeon out. I'm not even sure they can manage that despite headline betfair markets continuing to show remarkable resistance.
It's astonishing that NOM is still available at 1.14. This really is buying free money with only 3 weeks to collect.
Yep the manifestos have done nothing at all to change the landscape. Not particularly surprising given the skeptical reaction to the Tories giveaways and the nothingness of the Labour offer.
Any hope of anyone winning an overall majority is gone. Tories maj odds are drifting like crazy tonight on Betfair as NOM appears ready to dive into the 1.0x range. The poll numbers show no sign of shifting at all with now entrenched views of the electorate. All we can is hope the Conservatives can win enough seats to be part of the next coalition that keeps Miliband and Sturgeon out. I'm not even sure they can manage that despite headline betfair markets continuing to show remarkable resistance.
It's astonishing that NOM is still available at 1.14. This really is buying free money with only 3 weeks to collect.
MikeL I don't think turnout will be about the 65% it was in 2010, especially with the Greens, SNP and UKIP too and a close election, just that most people are not political junkies like us and want to watch wall to wall election coverage
Sorry to harp on with the same point, but this illustrates how fixed opinions are, and have been for months. The Tory and Labour votes are solidly dug in and have settled that they're not voting for the other lot. So even when there's a major story - like the manifestos - the two blocs go "meh" and nothing much changes. I'm not convinced that any of the polls that have excityed us were more than random variation around a deadlock.
In my view all of the above points to approx 75% of people taking literally almost zero interest in what any politician says..
That's probably true. Another reason I have some sympathy for the politicians, as people who are not anoraks not only don't seem to seek out such information, but often will actively try to avoid it, and then talk about how politicians never speak to people like them or understand their concerns, even though politicians seem more obsessed with trying to do that than they have ever been (even if it can come across like they are undertaking an anthropological study of the 'normal person' than just knowing what normal people are like). People just vote with their gut, so they key is not to say anything that might change that gut feeling of perception by gaining some wider negative coverage outside the party bastion papers.
Fact. Nothing is capable of moving them. Only the hope they are completely wrong can change the outcome now.
I agree. I can't imagine anything that would cause a dramatic shift now in the polls. I wonder if Cameron wishes he had gone for that head-to-head debate with Miliband after all? I know I sure do at this point. It probably wouldn't have made any difference either, but it would have been a prime time opportunity to strike some serious blows in front of a relatively large audience - if everything went well. It's hard to imagine a scenario where he can do anywhere near as much damage in a campaign that is just drifting towards stalemate every passing day.
Clegg made a huge mistake in not choosing to run a major department. Getting Business and Energy was an astonishingly bad for the Lib Dems to strike on the coalition.
They were the only profiles they had with the electorate!!
Given the suspicion in which Balls and Umunna are held by the Miliband inner circle, it is by no means certain that they would retain their briefs in Miliband’s first cabinet. This in turn would create one of the great uncertainties of a Miliband premiership: neither he nor anyone around him has any experience in business. For all their bright ideas about what companies could do for them, they haven’t a clue whether their various means of exerting pressure will work — or what unintended consequences may follow. One head of a FTSE100 company recently granted a rare audience with the putative First Lord of the Treasury sat dumbstruck as Miliband asked him, ‘Why exactly do you need to pay your shareholders dividends?’
Source? I thought not.
"Crisis, what crisis?" Most of the great political quotes weren't actually said. The point about this one, is that he could have said it.
Also @trublue - we have to face facts that the Tories really didn't resoundingly win or convince last time round. It was through a statistical fluke, divided Labour votes, and a lot of hard campaigning and help in micro targeting from Lord Ashcroft that they ended up with 307 seats, and not 296 seats as I expected.
If the latter had occurred, a Lab-LD coalition, prob without Brown, would have been a viable go-er with a small absolute overall majority.
There is absolutely no margin for dropping at all for the Tories this time. Perhaps a maximum of a net 15 seats if they're very very lucky, but really about 5 seats if they want to keep pushing their agenda and hold power in office, so they were always going to need to do relatively well in this campaign to win the election.
That hasn't happened, so we must probably start to reconcile ourselves to being a strong opposition now instead. It's not all doom-and-gloom, because I think any minority Labour administration will be very weak and have a torrid time. 2020GE could be even worse for them.
All the talk of the Liberal Democrats providing the heart for the Conservatives and the brains for Labour led me to look again at The Wizard of Oz. Towards the end of the film Dorothy accuses the Wizard of being a very bad man. 'Oh no' he says ' I am a very good man. I'm just a very bad wizard.' I think we could say the same about Nick Clegg - a very good man but a very bad politician.
Who managed to get his party into power (sort of) and himself to DPM?
How confident are you that UKIP will really do so poorly at converting votes into seats?
Not as confident as the model says we are, for many of the reasons noted above. UKIP performance is uncertain in a way that is very difficult to model. Because UKIP has such a limited record in parliamentary elections, it is difficult to predict where they will perform well. Moreover, we just have no idea from recent UK history how well a party like UKIP can be expected to do in the general election compared to, for example, the EP election in 2014. The fact that our estimates put weight on both lagged vote from 2010 and current polling means that the model is skeptical about UKIPs poll numbers, and will remain so until shortly before the election. If UKIP support holds at its current levels through election day and polling begins to indicate that UKIP support is concentrated in certain constituencies rather than inefficiently spread across most constituencies, the forecast may begin to indicate seat gains.
Sorry to harp on with the same point, but this illustrates how fixed opinions are, and have been for months. The Tory and Labour votes are solidly due in and have settled that they're not voting for the other lot. So even when there's a major story - like the manifestos - the two blocs go "meh" and nothing much changes. I'm not convinced that any of the polls that have excityed us were more than random variation around a deadlock.
You'd have more credibility with this point had you not made exactly the same one 6 months ago, for well over a year, regularly highlighting how Labour had had a consistent 3-4% lead for "simply ages".
To be fair to Nick, he has been saying level pegging through the recent polling volatility.
I didn't answer you yesterday but the red meat stuff in the Labour manifesto- non doms, zero contracts, 50p tax rate, energy freeze is minimalist. And the red meat in the Tory- tax allowances, IHT, and free vote of fox hunting is meagre. Each party is playing to its base in language only but in reality is tinkering at the margins; the difference now between these two broadly western european christian democrat (or social democrat) parties is negligible.
The likes of you and me might like to think there is an ideological gap- in reality it doesn't matter really one jot.
The fiscal reality of the deficit forces a degree of convergence on both parties. I do think the social-cultural policy, and european policies, of the two parties are generally distinct, however. I also think that the Tories, in the longer term, will tend to shrink the state as a size of GDP and increase competition and diversification within it. Labour will tend to try and increase it and maintain a degree of central oversight and accountability.
Otherwise, I agree with you. It's about picking leaders, aesthetics, a bit of team tribalism, who you want representing the UK on the world stage, a few pet policies and having confidence in them to deliver.
How confident are you that UKIP will really do so poorly at converting votes into seats?
Not as confident as the model says we are, for many of the reasons noted above. UKIP performance is uncertain in a way that is very difficult to model. Because UKIP has such a limited record in parliamentary elections, it is difficult to predict where they will perform well. Moreover, we just have no idea from recent UK history how well a party like UKIP can be expected to do in the general election compared to, for example, the EP election in 2014. The fact that our estimates put weight on both lagged vote from 2010 and current polling means that the model is skeptical about UKIPs poll numbers, and will remain so until shortly before the election. If UKIP support holds at its current levels through election day and polling begins to indicate that UKIP support is concentrated in certain constituencies rather than inefficiently spread across most constituencies, the forecast may begin to indicate seat gains.
You should be confident, unless UKIP dramatically increase their support. At the current level they are destined to be crushed in all but say half a dozen seats, and they won't win all of those. Their standard deviation will almost certainly be lower than the SDP's in 1983 (who got twice UKIP's current vote), and we know what happened to them...
How confident are you that UKIP will really do so poorly at converting votes into seats?
Not as confident as the model says we are, for many of the reasons noted above. UKIP performance is uncertain in a way that is very difficult to model. Because UKIP has such a limited record in parliamentary elections, it is difficult to predict where they will perform well. Moreover, we just have no idea from recent UK history how well a party like UKIP can be expected to do in the general election compared to, for example, the EP election in 2014. The fact that our estimates put weight on both lagged vote from 2010 and current polling means that the model is skeptical about UKIPs poll numbers, and will remain so until shortly before the election. If UKIP support holds at its current levels through election day and polling begins to indicate that UKIP support is concentrated in certain constituencies rather than inefficiently spread across most constituencies, the forecast may begin to indicate seat gains.
You should be confident, unless UKIP dramatically increase their support. At the current level they are destined to be crushed in all but say half a dozen seats, and they won't win all of those. Their standard deviation will almost certainly be lower than the SDP's in 1983 (who got twice UKIP's current vote), and we know what happened to them...
Terrible disease this hypocrisy virus, seems to spread so quickly.
When it comes to tax issues, the leader is a hypocrite, the man advising the leader is a hypocrite, a man involved in writing the manifesto is a hypocrite, the party itself are hypocritical as they take money from tax dodgers and the even the hobbit doing the PEB is a hypocrite.
Chris Mullin (@chrismullinexmp) April 14 Little known fact: Charlie Gow, son of Tory housing minister who introduced right-to-buy, owns at least 40 ex council properties
Mark Reckless@MarkReckless·6 mins6 minutes ago @LabourUncut I have had fantastic support from UKIP and @Nigel_Farage and don't agree with what you say + weird timing w manifesto acclaimed
But he couldn't quite manage the 25 minute drive from Rochester to Thurrock for the manifesto launch.
Your obsession regarding this matter is odd.
Was every Tory MP at their manifesto launch, or Labour MP at theirs?
Most Cabinet, and Shadow Cabinet would have been at their respective launches.
It's funny that UKIPs 2 MPs couldn't make it to their own manifesto unveiling, in spite of the fact that the venue is on the direct route between their constituencies. .
You are saucy. I suppose Reckless and Carswell have Farage on their election literature.
Canvassing today, the manifesto announcement that really got the voters excited/happy.
The childcare announcement.
No good for hardworking singletons
I do wonder:Who are you voting for ?
He's voting Tory.
If only you knew the power of the Daft Side
You voted Tory last time.
"I feel you" coming back "Home" to the Blues. "It's No Good" voting for the "Useless" Wes Streeting.
The Tories "Should Be Higher" in the polls. They should go for the "Policy of Truth" so that "Everything Counts" regarding their vote-share. It's just "A Question Of Time" before "New Life" is injected into the campaign!
Labour are paying their invisible man £300k a year, not a bad gig if you can get it.
Speaking at a book launch in Iowa, Mr Axelrod insisted that he is in contact with Mr Miliband "all the time". He said: "It isn't always by phone - sometimes we email and sometimes we text."
I will offer my services to Ed via email and text from half way around the world for a lot less than £300k
Comments
EICIPM
Where's yer Crossover now?
Of course shareholders expect a return, but if you are discussing how capitalism works from first principles, asking why that return should come as a regular dividend (for some companies a totemic amount unrelated to performance or profitability) is a fair one. Plenty of companies don't pay a dividend - not just Chinese ones. One might follow the Warren Buffett principle that in ordinary times if I have invested my money in a company, and it generates a surplus, it should deploy that money to grow the company I thought was worth investing in.
(and from an entirely venal perspective, dividends attract a chunk of tax for even the small investor. Capital appreciation doesn't - so reinvested dividends are a wildly inefficient way of growing my investment in a profitable company).
Shes so easy to loath. The whole back story about her being one of the poor and oppressed, having lived on the hard streets in a council house in her youth. Yeah. Her father was Assistant Secretary General of the UN, not uncommon on council estates, im sure. And then she used her brother as cover, telling us he is a white van driving man of toil. In a greasy spoon cafe with his work gear on and reflective jacket. Except, again, we find out that this was a little bit made up. He actually markets himself normally as a photo journalist specialising in aids activism. Just like most builders.
If YG is heavily biased towards political anoraks - which it seems it is from the post-debate poll - it is perhaps unsurprising that it moves very little.
Lib Dem leader Nick Clegg has insisted it is "ludicrous" to question whether a Liberal Democrat candidate filmed at a strip club on his stag night was fit to be an MP.
Leaked CCTV footage showed would-be MP Maajid Nawaz having a private lap dance at an east London strip club last summer.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/live/election-2015-32297154
Presuming people were actually questioning his fitness as a result.
UKIP holding steady with 3 weeks to go.
They are apparently promising £8bn towards my religion!!
ELBOW to follow when YG tables come out...
The problem with putting new policies in your manifesto is that they got washed over with other manifestos- we had the Greens yesterday, and the LD's and UKIP today. I doubt anyone can keep up with any of them. It is not like the budget which gets complete media attention for 2 or 3 days.
And tomorrow we have the debate which is another narrative changer which in likelihood will be overtaken by events at the weekend. And before we all know it, we are back at square one.
How is the campaigning in Broxtowe going?
Terrific 1-3 away win at Forest tonight for Watford, puts them within one point of top spot.
Where's ave it?
@AdamWilson_96: Do SNP have any economic credibility left. Now they are not wanting FFA autonomy and they now agree Barnett is best for Scotland. http://www.scotsman.com/news/politics/top-stories/nicola-sturgeon-backs-down-on-full-fiscal-autonomy-1-3745309
Liberal Democrats 34.5%
SNP 32.1%
Labour 16.2%
Conservatives 13.1%
Greens 2.0%
UKIP 0.7%
http://scotgoespop.blogspot.co.uk/2015/04/sensational-poll-commissioned-by-lib.html
Presumably Q1 was "Isn't Jo Swinson lovely?"
Is this like the WAK poll
He neglected to mention is was Prescott...
http://www.kirkintilloch-herald.co.uk/news/local-headlines/libdem-poll-predicts-neck-and-neck-race-1-3744775
I'll get my coat.
One question asked whothey’d vote for if the only candidates who could win the General Election in East Dunbartonshire were the LibDems or SNP.
The Conservative vote share seems to wax and wane off the back of how the UKIP and blue LD numbers are stacking up. The question is how that settles down on the day.
One ray of hope for the Conservatives is the Ashcroft constituency poll evidence of an increasing squeeze of UKIP voting intention in the key marginals, in the Conservatives favour.
However, that won't be enough to see the Tories back in government alone.
www.youtube.com/watch?v=-dVD5Tm1VHg
Any hope of anyone winning an overall majority is gone. Tories maj odds are drifting like crazy tonight on Betfair as NOM appears ready to dive into the 1.0x range. The poll numbers show no sign of shifting at all with now entrenched views of the electorate. All we can is hope the Conservatives can win enough seats to be part of the next coalition that keeps Miliband and Sturgeon out. I'm not even sure they can manage that despite headline betfair markets continuing to show remarkable resistance.
No BBC figures yet for yesterday but ITV1 10pm got a pitiful 1.1m.
I know some will say people get news now on the web but in my view very, very few people actively seek out news anywhere. The BBC and ITV news programmes get their ratings because they are the main two channels and people watch their news in a passive way - ie they've got the TV on anyway.
In my view all of the above points to approx 75% of people taking literally almost zero interest in what any politician says. Coupled with Individual Voter Registration I think it all points to low turnout - as a % of population.
Finally it also increases the risk of YouGov not being representative - because the YouGov panel is much more likely to be following political events more closely than the average person.
All around, clouding everything.
I didn't answer you yesterday but the red meat stuff in the Labour manifesto- non doms, zero contracts, 50p tax rate, energy freeze is minimalist. And the red meat in the Tory- tax allowances, IHT, and free vote of fox hunting is meagre.
Each party is playing to its base in language only but in reality is tinkering at the margins; the difference now between these two broadly western european christian democrat (or social democrat) parties is negligible.
The likes of you and me might like to think there is an ideological gap- in reality it doesn't matter really one jot.
If the latter had occurred, a Lab-LD coalition, prob without Brown, would have been a viable go-er with a small absolute overall majority.
There is absolutely no margin for dropping at all for the Tories this time. Perhaps a maximum of a net 15 seats if they're very very lucky, but really about 5 seats if they want to keep pushing their agenda and hold power in office, so they were always going to need to do relatively well in this campaign to win the election.
That hasn't happened, so we must probably start to reconcile ourselves to being a strong opposition now instead. It's not all doom-and-gloom, because I think any minority Labour administration will be very weak and have a torrid time. 2020GE could be even worse for them.
Con 284
Lab 273
SNP 43
LD 26
UKIP 1
Green 1
Oth 22
He is a shrewd idiot.
Not as confident as the model says we are, for many of the reasons noted above. UKIP performance is uncertain in a way that is very difficult to model. Because UKIP has such a limited record in parliamentary elections, it is difficult to predict where they will perform well. Moreover, we just have no idea from recent UK history how well a party like UKIP can be expected to do in the general election compared to, for example, the EP election in 2014. The fact that our estimates put weight on both lagged vote from 2010 and current polling means that the model is skeptical about UKIPs poll numbers, and will remain so until shortly before the election. If UKIP support holds at its current levels through election day and polling begins to indicate that UKIP support is concentrated in certain constituencies rather than inefficiently spread across most constituencies, the forecast may begin to indicate seat gains.
What price do you think Ukip should be in Thurrock?
Otherwise, I agree with you. It's about picking leaders, aesthetics, a bit of team tribalism, who you want representing the UK on the world stage, a few pet policies and having confidence in them to deliver.
Right, signing off now. Good night.
"I feel you" coming back "Home" to the Blues. "It's No Good" voting for the "Useless" Wes Streeting.
Non-domtastic. More Labour hypocrisy.
There are no 'UKIP' MPs.
Titter
When it comes to tax issues, the leader is a hypocrite, the man advising the leader is a hypocrite, a man involved in writing the manifesto is a hypocrite, the party itself are hypocritical as they take money from tax dodgers and the even the hobbit doing the PEB is a hypocrite.
April 14
Little known fact: Charlie Gow, son of Tory housing minister who introduced right-to-buy, owns at least 40 ex council properties
I suppose Reckless and Carswell have Farage on their election literature.
'Terrible disease this hypocrisy virus, seems to spread so quickly.'
Typical Labour do as I say routine.
http://teecraze.com/images/rb/buildingbetterworlds.jpg
Speaking at a book launch in Iowa, Mr Axelrod insisted that he is in contact with Mr Miliband "all the time". He said: "It isn't always by phone - sometimes we email and sometimes we text."
I will offer my services to Ed via email and text from half way around the world for a lot less than £300k