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politicalbetting.com » Blog Archive » The polls have the battle broadly tied – the spread betting
politicalbetting.com » Blog Archive » The polls have the battle broadly tied – the spread betting markets have a CON 19 seat lead
The week's national polling in fieldwork date order from http://t.co/zulWdj61nG pic.twitter.com/uL8ERlMPKn
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Edit: "Can we expect a proper cross-over in the final 17 days?"
I think that depends on how you define 'proper cross-over'. At this stage I would favour every pollster showing a lead for one party or the other, with no polls showing a contrary lead. And with Lab-Con apparently so close, and some pollsters only doing a few polls between now and then, I'd say that's unlikely.
So I guess we'll be going into the GE with the situation pretty much as it is.
It would not surprise me if one or more pollsters are very embarrassed after the GE. The question is knowing which one(s)... ;-)
Sort of like the old remark about how 'not all animals are dogs, but all dogs are animals'. 'Not all UKIP voters are former BNP, but (largely) former BNP are UKIP voters.'
Regarding crowding in a 900MP commons: stick 'em in Westminster Hall. It's in the same building, it's only 100 feet from the existing chamber, and can hold thousands.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-17444950
http://www.parliament.uk/about/living-heritage/building/palace/westminsterhall/
https://www.whatdotheyknow.com/request/202301/response/500605/attach/html/14/foiextract20140404-14870-1ur9dup-0-154_1.jpg
Life_ina_market_town said:
"The effect of the Fixed-term Parliaments Act 2011 should not be exaggerated. There is nothing whatever to stop the Prime Minister of a minority government proposing the motion "[t]hat this House has no confidence in Her Majesty's Government", ordering his party to vote for it and waiting fourteen days, whereupon the Crown has the power by Royal Proclamation to appoint a new polling day and dissolve Parliament. The only things which could prevent this contrivance are (1) the opposition parties choosing to vote against a motion of no-confidence, or (2) the Crown unilaterally sacking its Government. Neither seem particularly likely.
It is worth remembering that to achieve an early general election via the other method set out in the Act is much more difficult. A motion that "[t]hat there shall be an early parliamentary general election" must pass, either nemine dissentiente, or on division with the support of 434 MPs."
The FTPA is ambiguous. The wording implies surely that after a vote of no-confidence, another government should be given the opportunity to pass a vote of confidence in itself, and only in the event of another failure of confidence would an election ensue...
Ergo, a PM could either try to reconstitute his own government, or resign and pass the government to the Opposition. Doing neither seems not to be an option.
This saves having a wobbly Thursday in the run up.
Having said that Labour have their resident jonah on here every day Danny 565.
Weeks ending Apr.1, Apr.8, Apr.15
LAB 34, 33.5, 33.5
CON 35, 33.5, 33.5
LD 7.5, 8, 8
UKIP 12.5, 13, 13
GRN 6, 5, 5.5
A very stable picture.
During this week we have received another Labour double A3 glossy, a Conservative double A4 glossy and a single A3 colourful, but not glossy, Lib Dem. Still awaiting a Green leaflet.
"2.19 Under the Fixed-term Parliaments Act 2011, if a government is defeated on a motion that ‘this House has no confidence in Her Majesty’s Government’, there is then a 14-day period during which an alternative government can be formed from the House of Commons as presently constituted, or the incumbent government can seek to regain the confidence of the House. If no government can secure the confidence of the House of Commons during that period, through the approval of a motion that ‘this House has confidence in Her Majesty’s Government’, a general election will take place. Other decisions of the House of Commons which have previously been regarded as expressing ‘no confidence’ in the government no longer enable or require the Prime Minister to hold a general election. The Prime Minister is expected to resign where it is clear that he or she does not have the confidence of the House of Commons and that an alternative government does have the confidence.
2.20 Where a range of different administrations could be formed, discussions may take place between political parties on who should form the next government..."
It's a really big positive for the Blues on the doorstep. If the extent we are seeing translates into people voting accordingly, then Labour are in trouble.
(Incidentally, what figure do you have for the margin of error, and do you have a source?)
That result of CON 286, LAB 267, SNP 47, LD 24, UKIP 4-5 and GRN 1 seat, would mean 30 Tory loses to Labour, 4 Tory loses to UKIP and Labour holding to 10 seats in scotland and the LD losing 14 to the Tories, 9 to LAB and 10 to the SNP.
Workable only under three unlikely conditions:
1. The swing in England & Wales in Tory seats to be only 2.3% to Labour (very unlikely)
2. Labour would hold 10 seats in scotland (very unlikely)
3. No tactical voting in LD-Tory seats. (unlikely)
i) try to form another government, possibly including resignation as PM to allow another Tory to try.
ii) handing the baton to Miliband to try.
[It's not clear also whether each or either of these options could only be tried once in the 14 day period]
Only in the event of no-one obtaining a VoC within the 14 days does a second election ensue.
The nightmare scenario is Miliband, rejected at the polls in the first election and rejected by the House in a VoC, assuming the Premiership nevertheless, and leading the country into a second general election...
AIUI this isn't even an Ofcom regulated thing - its an electoral law thing.
"Most polling companies quote a margin of error of around about plus or minus 3 points. Technically this is based on a pure random sample of 1000 and doesn’t account for other factors like design and degree of weighting, but it is generally a good rule of thumb. What it means is that 19 times out of 20 the figure in a poll will be within 3 percentage points of what the “true” figure would be if you’d surveyed the entire population."
http://ukpollingreport.co.uk/blog/archives/5717
apologies for formatting error in last post. Incidently I agree Labour might edge UK there
Unless they are standing in England as well they can't get more than 59.
Sometimes I think that you'd be happier with UKIP 5%, LibDems 1%, rather than UKIP 15%, LibDems 15%.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/general-election-2015/11546760/The-SNPs-very-Scottish-conspiracy....html
The relevant rule says:
"6.12 Where a candidate is taking part in a programme on any matter, after the election has been called, s/he must not be given the opportunity to make constituency points, or electoral area points about the constituency or electoral area in which s/he is standing, when no other candidates will be given a similar opportunity."
Diane James is not standing in Heywood and Middleton. In fact she is not standing in any constituency and as such she is at liberty to say exactly what she said.
For a party at 50% , if the M of E of a poll is stated as plus/minus 3 then that party's M of E is also plus/minus 3 . For a party at x% the M of E varies as to the formula
x times ( 100 - x ) divided by ( 50 x 50 ) times the M of E
Therefore for example a party with a vote share of 10% will have a M of E of
10 times 90 equals 900 divided by 2500 times 3 ie just over plus or minus 1%
Should ensure things are entertaining, at least. Although betting opportunities might be limited.
When you are from the Utopian Left , you always prefer opposition.
Then you do not have to compromise your principles.
As an aside, that means some people's methodology in respect of UKIP is going to look very silly.
I think UKIP will poll well in the same areas, but stand by my assertion that they will not poll more than 20% in a dozen or so.
I suppose we will know in just 3 weeks who is the real ARSE...
Are countries with PR - such as Ireland, the Netherlands and Israel - inherently less democratic than the UK? I happen to like our system, but to claim that the way that other democracies organise themselves is undemocratic is ridiculous.
And while *everybody* hated the House of Lords proposals as agreed in committee, I don't have any issue with an elected HoL in principle. Do you?
Its possible of course that Andrew Neil was wrong, but not sure about that.
Its entirely possible what I mentioned was due to a BBC rule rather than due to Ofcom.
Richard may be right in his claim that its wrong for specific candidates only to mention a constituency but its perfectly OK for party representatives representing the candidate's party to discuss the constituency [edit - phew sounds like something Sir Humphrey would say] ... but either way it seems to be a "letter but not spirit of the law" claim.
6.8 Due impartiality must be strictly maintained in a constituency report or discussion and in an electoral area report or discussion.
He was obviously worried about the electoral law whereby if one candidate in a constituency is named then all the other candidates must be named.
However they already know that Labour are not offering an EU referendum, so what will now be the major squeeze factor ?
It would be like the national lottery but the winner becomes an MP, everyone would have equal chances of being selected regardless of class or sex or colour, it would be really a representative sample of the population.
However parliament would never vote for its own abolishment, the only way it could pass would be to make an extra chamber and make it a 3 chamber parliament with a House of Lords, a House of Commons, and a House of People.
The issue was that having named Aker in Thurrock that the BBC would then have had to name all other Thurrock candidates.
Given that the programme was live and they would not have been prepared to do that - ie they wouldn't have had a graphic ready and nobody in place to produce a graphic on the spot then potentially the BBC could have been in breach of the law.
I suspect they just took the view it was a very minor breach at midnight in a programme with a small audience so they decided they could get away with it.
Only the glorious SNP has the right to win Heywood, Thurrock blah blah blah.
For instance, Ukip and the Greens combined would still win just a handful of seats even if their strongest seats were split in two. In fact, they could win less if the seats were split in a manner that favours a different party in each half, like the Lib Dems in Oxford. For another instance, on any feasible number of Scottish FPTP seats and the current vote distribution as per polls, the SNP is going to win the vast bulk, with little concession to proportionality. You could perhaps get more proportionality if you dialled Scotland up to an unrealistic figure of seats - two hundred? - but even so, a bias will exist toward parties that can regionally-concentrate their support, i.e. more for the Scottish Lib Dems and less for the Conservatives.
Any chance of putting a yellow diamond sign in your garden. ?
You CAN make a constituency point - candidates in individual constituencies can be interviewed and featured.
The issue is that IF this happens the BROADCASTER has to then put up a list of all candidates in that constituency.
National is an "electoral area".
The only organisation that could POTENTIALLY have broken the law was the BBC.
But I agree with you - it was so brief and in passing and Andrew Neil cut her off after literally about two seconds so, in practice, it was reasonable to leave it there.
And of course that applies in the UK as well. The system we have now is increasingly undemocratic as the parties have way too much power - one reason why so many people are turned off politics entirely. But a PR system - crystallising the idea that power should be proportional for the parties and so legitimising their claims and their abilities to bully MPs - would only make that worse.
As for the HoL the only way I wold accept it could be reformed into an elected chamber is if every vote was a free vote and whips were banned.
For anyone that's interested, voting closes at 6pm UK time, links as follows:
Results
http://tulospalvelu.vaalit.fi/E-2015/en/index.html
TV
http://areena.yle.fi/tv/suora/tv1
Govt formed after the 2011 election had 6 parties which puts the UK into context!
Thanks and good luck to everyone who played the game, the next one out will be for Poland Presidential and then the UK.
Great piece on Grand Coalitions from TSE - abroad they are the norm in Austria, occasional in Germany (both Merkel's 1st and current terms) and also in place in the Netherlands at present.
Cheers,
DC
Comres last had a Labour phone lead in Dec 2014
ICM last had one in Jan 2015
Ashcroft has had 2 Labour leads in 13 phone polls since Christmas.
Opinium have had six weeks of Tory leads or ties.
Even TNS and Survation are putting up Tory leads.
Yougov's assumption that Labour were one in front in January, which they've weighted into every poll since 6/7 April, appears courageous.
The best democracy is the swiss one but that's because they have constant referendums on anything small or big.
Apart from Carswell no other MP has ever tried to thing outside the box on this issue, and that is because like on most things people don't care about things until push comes to shove and are forced to make a choice.
The AV referendum was like that, people were forced to choose between 2 bad electoral systems and FPTP won because it was more simple and convenient than AV, I even had a bad joke at the time mixing STV & STD.
CON 305
LAB 256
LD 34
SNP 32
PC 3
GRN 1
UKIP 1
NI 18
Watford CON hold!
Say we are top of the league say we are top of the league!!
Odd start to the season.
Every race, if you followed my tips, has been red. But if I get a 2/1 winner next time, I'm green overall. (Today was red by 50 pence, using my standard £10 stake comparison). I've had 3/7 tips right. So, not quite sure how to feel about that.
Post-race piece will be up before 7pm. Probably.
The Dutch are still very close to pure-proportionality with their 0.67 per cent threshold. It's quite feasible for one-woman or one-man parties to get elected. The Irish system isn't really party-proportional at all, in fact it would operate fine if there were no parties whatsoever, but in practice it leads to fairly proportional outcomes while retaining the bias to parties concentrated geographically that is inherent in a candidate-, rather than party-based system.
Your prediction: CON 305, LAB 256.
How did you manage?
"YouGov research finds that up to Friday, Labour had contacted more voters locally than the Tories, in person, by phone, via leaflets and by email.
I still expect a late shift to the Conservatives, with the safety of the status quo trumping the fear of change among voters who make up their minds late.
Without that late swing, Labour would now be on course to be the largest party in the new House of Commons, despite facing huge losses in Scotland."
https://yougov.co.uk/news/2015/04/19/tories-are-losing-both-air-war-and-ground-war/