Chestnut's poll deconstructions are one of the great things about PB.
Now that we no longer have Seth O Logue, it's reassuring that someone else has stepped into the breach to explain patiently why polls are rather better for the Conservatives than the headline figures might suggest.
How the Conservatives orchestrated the letter from business leaders - and got it wrong
Karen Brady has spearheaded efforts to persuade small business-owners to sign a letter claiming that a Labour government would be too risky for Britain.
No wonder Cameron supports West Ham now !
You can see why Jeremy Chum was so keen to keep The Apprentice off the telly.
Miliband is going more and more extreme Marxist as the campaign progresses.
As Venezuela already exists, its a know fact that if he, by some chance wins and enacts what he says, the economy will completely bomb. It must be getting time to start hoarding the toilet rolls to minimise the risk to personal hygiene after May 7th.
Hmmm. The problem with that logic is that you could equally say something like "Tories posturing more and more as the party that will serve business through deregulation, liberalised flows of capital and preserving tax incentives for globally mobile 'wealth creators' to base in the UK". As the 2007-8 financial crash happened, it's a known fact that another gigantic worldwide financial crisis will result if they are elected.
If it wasn't for our election rules on 5 year terms, the UK doesn't actually need an election. If it was a plc, you wouldn't change the leadership & strategy when its really starting to work. And you certainly wouldn't want to hand over the boardroom to a workers collective & over grown student politicians.
PLCs are run like China. Leadership changes and strategy are agreed by the leadership. Democracy doesn't come into. It is a defendable effective model.
Is that what you are proposing for the UK?
Nope
When things need changing for poor performance, the shareholders do chuck out the old management and bring a new lot in. If things are going well or the changes made by the new management are starting to work, you carry on.
Take supermarkets as a comparison:
Tesco & Morrisons - old CEO out, new ones in place = election change
Waitrose - doing fine, plan working = no need for election
Sainsbury's under Justin King after 5 years = the plans working, no need for change
The UK's like Sainsbury's was a while ago.
Shareholders have an Annual General Meeting. Sounds like you support the Chartists call for annual Parliaments. How else do you decide whether things are going well and you want the current management to continue but by having a vote?
The point is we don't actually need an election now. Changing anything beyond slight touches on the tiller is too risky
I'm sure Brown would have loved to be able to argue the same in 2010. The question then is who decides, who are the shareholders of a country?
That would be the people, in a general election. So give them a vote every year and let them decide whether it is too risky or not.
PFI may have been one of the worst policy mistakes of the last Labour government in my opinion, but I think the current government are still signing new PFI deals.
It's one of the things that leads me to think that British politics has been essentially in stasis since Blair became leader of the Labour party. The Blairite consensus is still with us.
There's nothing wrong with PFI deals in principle, it's just that under Labour they were spectacularly badly negotiated. It's not a surprise - Labour were (and remain) supremely uninterested in value for money, so of course they didn't get value for money.
Alistair gives a good summary of why I disagree with you a couple of posts below yours.
Theoretically contracts could be written better but Edinburgh Trams show why it doesn't work in practice. Edinburgh council wrote a good, fixed price contract, The private contractor who took on the contract couldn't do it and went bust and Edinburgh was left with a useless half finished tram system and dug up roads.
Wasn't a major problem ground conditions (i.e. utilities not being where they were supposed to be)?
The major problem is that it was a ridiculously stupid idea in the first place especially when it parallels the existing railway for 99% of it's route. An extension stub to Edinburgh Airport would have cost less than £20m including the station costs.
Well, I agree with that, at least for what Edinburgh ended up with. The initially-proposed phase 1 (e.g. including the Leith arm) made more sense, at least to me.
When the Leith arm and Granton spur were dropped, the entire project became a joke.
Miliband is going more and more extreme Marxist as the campaign progresses.
As Venezuela already exists, its a know fact that if he, by some chance wins and enacts what he says, the economy will completely bomb. It must be getting time to start hoarding the toilet rolls to minimise the risk to personal hygiene after May 7th.
Hmmm. The problem with that logic is that you could equally say something like "Tories posturing more and more as the party that will serve business through deregulation, liberalised flows of capital and preserving tax incentives for globally mobile 'wealth creators' to base in the UK". As the 2007-8 financial crash happened, it's a known fact that another gigantic worldwide financial crisis will result if they are elected.
If it wasn't for our election rules on 5 year terms, the UK doesn't actually need an election. If it was a plc, you wouldn't change the leadership & strategy when its really starting to work. And you certainly wouldn't want to hand over the boardroom to a workers collective & over grown student politicians.
PLCs are run like China. Leadership changes and strategy are agreed by the leadership. Democracy doesn't come into. It is a defendable effective model.
Is that what you are proposing for the UK?
Nope
When things need changing for poor performance, the shareholders do chuck out the old management and bring a new lot in. If things are going well or the changes made by the new management are starting to work, you carry on.
Take supermarkets as a comparison:
Tesco & Morrisons - old CEO out, new ones in place = election change
Waitrose - doing fine, plan working = no need for election
Sainsbury's under Justin King after 5 years = the plans working, no need for change
The UK's like Sainsbury's was a while ago.
Shareholders have an Annual General Meeting. Sounds like you support the Chartists call for annual Parliaments. How else do you decide whether things are going well and you want the current management to continue but by having a vote?
The point is we don't actually need an election now. Changing anything beyond slight touches on the tiller is too risky
I'm sure Brown would have loved to be able to argue the same in 2010. The question then is who decides, who are the shareholders of a country?
That would be the people, in a general election. So give them a vote every year and let them decide whether it is too risky or not.
Chestnut's poll deconstructions are one of the great things about PB.
Now that we no longer have Seth O Logue, it's reassuring that someone else has stepped into the breach to explain patiently why polls are rather better for the Conservatives than the headline figures might suggest.
I miss the yellow boxes and when Andrew Lansley became Leader [of the House]....
Hmmm. The problem with that logic is that you could equally say something like "Tories posturing more and more as the party that will serve business through deregulation, liberalised flows of capital and preserving tax incentives for globally mobile 'wealth creators' to base in the UK". As the 2007-8 financial crash happened, it's a known fact that another gigantic worldwide financial crisis will result if they are elected.
If it wasn't for our election rules on 5 year terms, the UK doesn't actually need an election. If it was a plc, you wouldn't change the leadership & strategy when its really starting to work. And you certainly wouldn't want to hand over the boardroom to a workers collective & over grown student politicians.
PLCs are run like China. Leadership changes and strategy are agreed by the leadership. Democracy doesn't come into. It is a defendable effective model.
Is that what you are proposing for the UK?
Nope
When things need changing for poor performance, the shareholders do chuck out the old management and bring a new lot in. If things are going well or the changes made by the new management are starting to work, you carry on.
Take supermarkets as a comparison:
Tesco & Morrisons - old CEO out, new ones in place = election change
Waitrose - doing fine, plan working = no need for election
Sainsbury's under Justin King after 5 years = the plans working, no need for change
The UK's like Sainsbury's was a while ago.
Shareholders have an Annual General Meeting. Sounds like you support the Chartists call for annual Parliaments. How else do you decide whether things are going well and you want the current management to continue but by having a vote?
The point is we don't actually need an election now. Changing anything beyond slight touches on the tiller is too risky
I'm sure Brown would have loved to be able to argue the same in 2010. The question then is who decides, who are the shareholders of a country?
That would be the people, in a general election. So give them a vote every year and let them decide whether it is too risky or not.
Every year?!
It's the only one of the Chartists demands not yet to have been adopted. I hope it would force everyone - politicians and the public - to be a bit more grown-up. It would put an end to the ridiculous practice of tax-cuts before an election and tax increases afterwards, for example.
Chestnut's poll deconstructions are one of the great things about PB.
Now that we no longer have Seth O Logue, it's reassuring that someone else has stepped into the breach to explain patiently why polls are rather better for the Conservatives than the headline figures might suggest.
I miss the yellow boxes and when Andrew Lansley became Leader [of the House]....
It's the only one of the Chartists demands not yet to have been adopted. I hope it would force everyone - politicians and the public - to be a bit more grown-up. It would put an end to the ridiculous practice of tax-cuts before an election and tax increases afterwards, for example.
In the US, having House elections every two years puts them completely in hock to campaign contributors. I could only see it increasing short-termism, not reducing it
Away from the frenzied contest in Scotland, a subset of the poll shows the Conservatives are running at 38% in England and Wales, five points clear of Labour on 33%.
Away from the frenzied contest in Scotland, a subset of the poll shows the Conservatives are running at 38% in England and Wales, five points clear of Labour on 33%.
Cameron’s personal approval ratings drop back somewhat from his strong showing a fortnight ago, but he is still in positive territory: 50% of voters say he is doing a good job, compared to 38% who think he’s doing badly. That gives the prime minister a net +12 this time, compared with +18 when the question was last asked.
Ed Miliband’s numbers ticked up from a very low base at the start of the campaign, but this poll suggests he is now flat-lining: standing on a net –29, compared to -30 earlier this month. Nick Clegg is likewise marooned – in his case at -19, compared to -20 last time.
It's the only one of the Chartists demands not yet to have been adopted. I hope it would force everyone - politicians and the public - to be a bit more grown-up. It would put an end to the ridiculous practice of tax-cuts before an election and tax increases afterwards, for example.
Why not have permanent elections? Every voter could have their vote centrally registered (securely?!) and could change it at will - maybe a set number of times per year? - in response to developments. It would also change the tactical equation considerably...
Away from the frenzied contest in Scotland, a subset of the poll shows the Conservatives are running at 38% in England and Wales, five points clear of Labour on 33%.
3% swing then.
Hold on that includes Wales as well...
Whats the England only scores ?
Don't know, waiting for Tom Clark to send me the tables.
Away from the frenzied contest in Scotland, a subset of the poll shows the Conservatives are running at 38% in England and Wales, five points clear of Labour on 33%.
3% swing then.
Hold on that includes Wales as well...
Whats the England only scores ?
2.5% swing in England and Wales. Given the high vote for UKIP (for ICM) this is a very good poll for the Conservatives.
PFI may have been one of the worst policy mistakes of the last Labour government in my opinion, but I think the current government are still signing new PFI deals.
It's one of the things that leads me to think that British politics has been essentially in stasis since Blair became leader of the Labour party. The Blairite consensus is still with us.
There's nothing wrong with PFI deals in principle, it's just that under Labour they were spectacularly badly negotiated. It's not a surprise - Labour were (and remain) supremely uninterested in value for money, so of course they didn't get value for money.
Alistair gives a good summary of why I disagree with you a couple of posts below yours.
Theoretically contracts could be written better but Edinburgh Trams show why it doesn't work in practice. Edinburgh council wrote a good, fixed price contract, The private contractor who took on the contract couldn't do it and went bust and Edinburgh was left with a useless half finished tram system and dug up roads.
Wasn't a major problem ground conditions (i.e. utilities not being where they were supposed to be)?
The major problem is that it was a ridiculously stupid idea in the first place especially when it parallels the existing railway for 99% of it's route. An extension stub to Edinburgh Airport would have cost less than £20m including the station costs.
Well, I agree with that, at least for what Edinburgh ended up with. The initially-proposed phase 1 (e.g. including the Leith arm) made more sense, at least to me.
When the Leith arm and Granton spur were dropped, the entire project became a joke.
ICM is interesting in that it shows it is not an outlier, but rather the difference between it and other polling companies showing Labour leads is methodological.
PFI may have been one of the worst policy mistakes of the last Labour government in my opinion, but I think the current government are still signing new PFI deals.
It's one of the things that leads me to think that British politics has been essentially in stasis since Blair became leader of the Labour party. The Blairite consensus is still with us.
It is an astoundingly financially illiterate idea. Instead of the government borrowing the money directly at government rates we pay a private company to borrow the money at commercial rates. The myth is that we pass off the risk to the private company but the reality is that the public needs the infrastructure so cannot afford to allow the private company to fail. There is no risk.
PFI is Faki Laki on an industrial scale. It's a great example of how countries we think of as "corrupt" are amateurs compared to the level of institutional and massive corruption that exist in the UK. All the PFI companies are chock full of former Labour MPs as their advisers and directors.
I'll make my usual comments that not all PFIs are equal: they became popular for road projects in the 1980s as DBFO, and IMHO they work well for them.
The problem comes with the 'O' OF DBFO: operating a road is relatively simple. A school is probably an order of magnitude more complex, and a hospital two orders.
This govt has not pursued PFI to the same extent as Labour. They will have had to go ahead with those on the stocks but I know of a number of big NHS schemes with are conventionally procured. With PFI you get all the future maintenance and replacement guaranteed for 30 years. This can be good except contractually you cannot save money by skimping on repairs and maintenance when 'the money runs out'. Hospitals are heavily serviced in places, but they offer well known problems and solutions. The company that is maintaining them also built them.
The market's taking both Lab +3 and Con +3 in its stride today...
Probably because whereas Populus have put Labour 0-3% ahead of the Conservatives for the past six months, ICM have shown a definite swing to the Tories. They were 3% behind Labour in January with ICM, but they've now shown 5 consecutive polls with the Tories in front.
It feels a bit like Cameron's absence in the opposition leaders debate (along with Clegg) might be behind the modest UKIP resurgence. He should have had his skin in the game.
Its the Con plus Ukip figure that astounds me, 48%
Yes. Imagine if UKIP didn't exist. Tories would be roaring home to a stonking majority.
I think Staines made an interesting point (amongst all the nonsense he posts). If Tories lose this election, the man to blame, the Tories pollster guy Andrew Cooper. He has told them repeatedly the Euro Elections were UKIP peak point and that after that they would continue to drop away to basically nothing.
So far, other than I think that one "outlier" ICM poll that had UKIP on 7%, all the rest have them in the mid teens.
The Tories whole strategy was predictated on Ed is Crap and that UKIPers would "come home to the Tories". The first has been Ed isn't quite as crap as they hoped (but I don't think it making much difference, as Labour's policies are still blank sheet of paper / mostly crap), the second is making a massive difference.
It's the only one of the Chartists demands not yet to have been adopted. I hope it would force everyone - politicians and the public - to be a bit more grown-up. It would put an end to the ridiculous practice of tax-cuts before an election and tax increases afterwards, for example.
Why not have permanent elections? Every voter could have their vote centrally registered (securely?!) and could change it at will - maybe a set number of times per year? - in response to developments. It would also change the tactical equation considerably...
This is how Liquid Democracy works: You can use your vote directly, like direct democracy, but you can also assign it to somebody else, and take it back or move it if you don't like what they do with it.
ICM is interesting in that it shows it is not an outlier, but rather the difference between it and other polling companies showing Labour leads is methodological.
Yes. Looking very much like phone v internet polls for this election, the former showing small Blue leads and the latter small Red ones!
Some pollsters will end up with very eggy faces on May 8th.
If the SNP win massively in Scotland, it should be relatively easy to agree the abolition of the position of Secretary of State for Scotland-saves a decent sum of money at least.
A much more difficult matter will be the composition of the Scottish Affairs Committee which consists of 5 Labour, 3 Tories (what a farce), 2 Lib Dems, and 1 SNP. The SNP member hasn't attended for years since the Labour Chair, Ian Davidson, threatened to bayonet her.
Sorry, correction, he only threatened to give her a doing, it was the losers of the referendum that he threatened to bayonet :-)
The composition of the committee is meant to significantly reflect the composition of the House Of Commons as a whole, but I am sure the SNP will justifiably exploit the issue if the membership is not radically reformed in their favour-I could perhaps see them accepting a limitation to their membership in exchange for significant membership of other plum committees
It may well be their failure to get out the vote on the day rather than a real change in voting intention. It must worry UKIP that many of their voters did not vote last time or are permanent non-voters.
Hospitals in the West Midlands are having to repay at least 10% of their annual turnover after taking out so-called “NHS mortgages” to build new facilities. A total of 10 new hospitals have been completed, or are currently being built, in the West Midlands under the private finance initiative (PFI). Figures obtained by the BBC claim that the NHS in England faces a total bill of £65 billion for 103 PFI hospital schemes, which involve private firms paying for and building new hospitals and mental health units, with the NHS paying the money back over a period of 30 or more years. Although the data shows that the value of the projects when they were built was only £11.3bn, this soars to £65.1bn over the lifetime of the deals once extra costs such as maintenance, cleaning and catering are taken into account.
There is an astounding payment schedule for an Ayshire schools PFI scheme.
Was that a mistake, was about North Lanarkshire , not Ayrshire.
Aye, don't know why I wrote Ayrshire down there.
You were thinking of its great beauty Alistair.
One of the first times I went to Ayrshire as a boy we drove through (a crawl sue to the press of Orangemen) a town that was having the grand gathering of Orange lodges.
Scared the f'ing crap out of me.
Luckily not as bad as it used to be but far from cured. I was born in Kilwinning in Ayrshire which was staunch to say the least. Seems unbelievable nowadays , first question you asked was always , what school do you go to. Sadly West of Scotland has not got rid of it yet, I live in hope but doubt I will see it totally eradicated.
Agreed, the savages are just too backward. They do not really belong in a modern country at all.
They are Britain's hillbillies. West of Scotland = Deliverance
PFI may have been one of the worst policy mistakes of the last Labour government in my opinion, but I think the current government are still signing new PFI deals.
It's one of the things that leads me to think that British politics has been essentially in stasis since Blair became leader of the Labour party. The Blairite consensus is still with us.
There's nothing wrong with PFI deals in principle, it's just that under Labour they were spectacularly badly negotiated. It's not a surprise - Labour were (and remain) supremely uninterested in value for money, so of course they didn't get value for money.
Alistair gives a good summary of why I disagree with you a couple of posts below yours.
Theoretically contracts could be written better but Edinburgh Trams show why it doesn't work in practice. Edinburgh council wrote a good, fixed price contract, The private contractor who took on the contract couldn't do it and went bust and Edinburgh was left with a useless half finished tram system and dug up roads.
Wasn't a major problem ground conditions (i.e. utilities not being where they were supposed to be)?
The major problem is that it was a ridiculously stupid idea in the first place especially when it parallels the existing railway for 99% of it's route. An extension stub to Edinburgh Airport would have cost less than £20m including the station costs.
Well, I agree with that, at least for what Edinburgh ended up with. The initially-proposed phase 1 (e.g. including the Leith arm) made more sense, at least to me.
When the Leith arm and Granton spur were dropped, the entire project became a joke.
I'm not a fan of Boris but I don't think it's the place of BBC Robinson to speculate on BJ's future. As a reporter he should report facts.
But what about as the BBC's chief political correspondent?
Wonder how long before pressure builds for not only the Leith/Granton link to be built, but extensions to the RIE (and possibly to Penicuik)?
Is there really any appetite at all for yet more major disruption to Leith, given the foot of the walk is currently a mess due to the Kirk gate works? Is there really any more desire to spend untold millions, given the causes of the overspend have not suddenly disappeared?
@NCPoliticsUK: ICM has now shown five consecutive #Conservative leads, longest Tory streak from a single pollster since December 2010 #GE2015 #ELECTION2015
It may well be their failure to get out the vote on the day rather than a real change in voting intention. It must worry UKIP that many of their voters did not vote last time or are permanent non-voters.
UKIP performed well in the 2013 (23% NEV), and 2014 (18% NEV) local elections. If their supporters turned out for those, they'll turn out for the General.
It may well be their failure to get out the vote on the day rather than a real change in voting intention. It must worry UKIP that many of their voters did not vote last time or are permanent non-voters.
Its the Con plus Ukip figure that astounds me, 48%
That is why I have been thinking the ICM weightings are wrong !
Today's Populus has them on 47%, last night's YouGov has them on 47%, Opinium has them on 47%.
Survation has them on 51%
Maybe they are all wrong ! In any case, the parties [ or, the party which has foot soldiers ] will have good canvass returns by now and they will be their own independent judgements.
Its the Con plus Ukip figure that astounds me, 48%
Yes. Imagine if UKIP didn't exist. Tories would be roaring home to a stonking majority.
And there's the rub.
How many of those people who're telling the pollsters they'll vote UKIP will stand in the box on the 7th, hover over the UKIP box, and then remember Ed Miliband will be Prime Minister tomorrow if they tick there? How many, like me, will hold my nose and vote for Dave?
Once again with contrary polls it's clearly down to methodology as to which gets it right:
Propensity to vote - which supporters will turn-out? Regional variation - Nw & Ldn v Sw & Midlands? Age distribution of support - older Tories/Ukip v younger Lab/SNP? How well are the pollsters picking up those registered to vote or those who didn't vote last time. My inclination as well as rationality think ICM is probably closer. The very sameness of YG and Populus also lends doubt.
Looking back at the 2010GE polling, it was all a bit squeaky bum for the Tories from 15th-30th April. Plenty of scores at 32,33 and 34%. It was only really in the final week, from 1st May onwards, that they started to consistently improve.
Of course, that might just have been because the Cleggasm was a chimera. Whereas this time they have been consistently polling at the 33-35% level for months.
The world's whackiest election result, quite possibly...
Scotland only results in 2010 were skewed like that. SNP are only standing is Scotland with Scotland specific issues, so its 4% is not so strange. It is the Labour wipe out there that takes us back to 1906 type situations.
Cameron’s personal approval ratings drop back somewhat from his strong showing a fortnight ago, but he is still in positive territory: 50% of voters say he is doing a good job, compared to 38% who think he’s doing badly. That gives the prime minister a net +12 this time, compared with +18 when the question was last asked.
Ed Miliband’s numbers ticked up from a very low base at the start of the campaign, but this poll suggests he is now flat-lining: standing on a net –29, compared to -30 earlier this month. Nick Clegg is likewise marooned – in his case at -19, compared to -20 last time.
Cameron cannot be getting ratings for being PM at the moment because he is in the middle of an election. He is not being prime ministerial. The LOTO is never more in his role than when in an election.
Away from the frenzied contest in Scotland, a subset of the poll shows the Conservatives are running at 38% in England and Wales, five points clear of Labour on 33%. But there is some comfort for Labour in the even smaller sub-sample of the poll that comes from battleground seats in England and Wales. These are defined as those that Labour won by no more than 10 percentage points in 2010, or the Conservatives won by no more than 15 points. Labour is running at 40% in these seats, which is up four points on 2010, while the Tories are on 36%, which is down two points. Some caution is needed because the sample in this case is fairly small, but this would suggest the swing to Labour is slightly stronger in these swing seats than across Britain as a whole.
Its the Con plus Ukip figure that astounds me, 48%
Yes. Imagine if UKIP didn't exist. Tories would be roaring home to a stonking majority.
And there's the rub.
How many of those people who're telling the pollsters they'll vote UKIP will stand in the box on the 7th, hover over the UKIP box, and then remember Ed Miliband will be Prime Minister tomorrow if they tick there? How many, like me, will hold my nose and vote for Dave?
A fair few I would guess.
Thanks to the SNP taking 10 seats from the Liberals and probably also 1 from the Tories, even nose-pegging might not be enough.
Frankly ICM are a disgrace. UKIP score virtually doubles in two weeks-come on.
I wonder if they're running scared and joining the herd?
No idea why UKIP were ever at 9% with ICM as they were for much of this year. Seems they're now trying to cover their arses with the election in sight.
Its the Con plus Ukip figure that astounds me, 48%
Yes. Imagine if UKIP didn't exist. Tories would be roaring home to a stonking majority.
And there's the rub.
How many of those people who're telling the pollsters they'll vote UKIP will stand in the box on the 7th, hover over the UKIP box, and then remember Ed Miliband will be Prime Minister tomorrow if they tick there? How many, like me, will hold my nose and vote for Dave?
Away from the frenzied contest in Scotland, a subset of the poll shows the Conservatives are running at 38% in England and Wales, five points clear of Labour on 33%. But there is some comfort for Labour in the even smaller sub-sample of the poll that comes from battleground seats in England and Wales. These are defined as those that Labour won by no more than 10 percentage points in 2010, or the Conservatives won by no more than 15 points. Labour is running at 40% in these seats, which is up four points on 2010, while the Tories are on 36%, which is down two points. Some caution is needed because the sample in this case is fairly small, but this would suggest the swing to Labour is slightly stronger in these swing seats than across Britain as a whole.
Hospitals in the West Midlands are having to repay at least 10% of their annual turnover after taking out so-called “NHS mortgages” to build new facilities. A total of 10 new hospitals have been completed, or are currently being built, in the West Midlands under the private finance initiative (PFI). Figures obtained by the BBC claim that the NHS in England faces a total bill of £65 billion for 103 PFI hospital schemes, which involve private firms paying for and building new hospitals and mental health units, with the NHS paying the money back over a period of 30 or more years. Although the data shows that the value of the projects when they were built was only £11.3bn, this soars to £65.1bn over the lifetime of the deals once extra costs such as maintenance, cleaning and catering are taken into account.
There is an astounding payment schedule for an Ayshire schools PFI scheme.
Was that a mistake, was about North Lanarkshire , not Ayrshire.
Aye, don't know why I wrote Ayrshire down there.
You were thinking of its great beauty Alistair.
One of the first times I went to Ayrshire as a boy we drove through (a crawl sue to the press of Orangemen) a town that was having the grand gathering of Orange lodges.
Scared the f'ing crap out of me.
Luckily not as bad as it used to be but far from cured. I was born in Kilwinning in Ayrshire which was staunch to say the least. Seems unbelievable nowadays , first question you asked was always , what school do you go to. Sadly West of Scotland has not got rid of it yet, I live in hope but doubt I will see it totally eradicated.
Agreed, the savages are just too backward. They do not really belong in a modern country at all.
They are Britain's hillbillies. West of Scotland = Deliverance
Without them, the United Kingdom would have been voted out of existence on September 18th.
Away from the frenzied contest in Scotland, a subset of the poll shows the Conservatives are running at 38% in England and Wales, five points clear of Labour on 33%. But there is some comfort for Labour in the even smaller sub-sample of the poll that comes from battleground seats in England and Wales. These are defined as those that Labour won by no more than 10 percentage points in 2010, or the Conservatives won by no more than 15 points. Labour is running at 40% in these seats, which is up four points on 2010, while the Tories are on 36%, which is down two points. Some caution is needed because the sample in this case is fairly small, but this would suggest the swing to Labour is slightly stronger in these swing seats than across Britain as a whole.
Its the Con plus Ukip figure that astounds me, 48%
Yes. Imagine if UKIP didn't exist. Tories would be roaring home to a stonking majority.
And there's the rub.
How many of those people who're telling the pollsters they'll vote UKIP will stand in the box on the 7th, hover over the UKIP box, and then remember Ed Miliband will be Prime Minister tomorrow if they tick there? How many, like me, will hold my nose and vote for Dave?
A fair few I would guess.
Thanks to the SNP taking 10 seats from the Liberals and probably also 1 from the Tories, even nose-pegging might not be enough.
Possibly Surby. But, you can't rule out some people waking up to a nasty surprise on the 8th.
Its the Con plus Ukip figure that astounds me, 48%
Yes. Imagine if UKIP didn't exist. Tories would be roaring home to a stonking majority.
And there's the rub.
How many of those people who're telling the pollsters they'll vote UKIP will stand in the box on the 7th, hover over the UKIP box, and then remember Ed Miliband will be Prime Minister tomorrow if they tick there? How many, like me, will hold my nose and vote for Dave?
A fair few I would guess.
A tiny percentage I imagine. Kippers seem similarly entrenched in their views as SNP supporters. I believe if DC wasn't the leader there would be a greater bleed back to the Tories on the day but Cameron is the reason so many Kippers have left the Tories so he's not going to have a big pull factor on the day.
Comments
I'll be donating 50% of any winnings to my MND campaign site:
https://www.justgiving.com/Calum-Ferguson1/
I'll be sending William Hill a thankyou note. Hopefully they'll match my donation !!
That would be the people, in a general election. So give them a vote every year and let them decide whether it is too risky or not.
Tories: 35% (+1)
Lab: 32% (nc)
Ukip: 13%
LD: 9%
Green 5%
http://t.co/WeRcYoOXXT
Con 35 (+1) Lab 32 (nc) UKIP 13 (+2) LD 9 (-1)
http://www.theguardian.com/politics/2015/apr/27/conservatives-three-point-lead-over-labour-guardian-icm-poll
Want to see if I'm right...
Hold on that includes Wales as well...
Whats the England only scores ?
Cameron’s personal approval ratings drop back somewhat from his strong showing a fortnight ago, but he is still in positive territory: 50% of voters say he is doing a good job, compared to 38% who think he’s doing badly. That gives the prime minister a net +12 this time, compared with +18 when the question was last asked.
Ed Miliband’s numbers ticked up from a very low base at the start of the campaign, but this poll suggests he is now flat-lining: standing on a net –29, compared to -30 earlier this month. Nick Clegg is likewise marooned – in his case at -19, compared to -20 last time.
Hospitals are heavily serviced in places, but they offer well known problems and solutions. The company that is maintaining them also built them.
Looking like
UKIP 14%, 3 seats
LD 9%, 30 seats
SNP 4%, 50 seats
The world's whackiest election result, quite possibly...
You still supporting Swingback, Rod?
I actually voted yes to AV, but I'm probably now in the "STV or go **** yourself" camp.
http://blogs.spectator.co.uk/coffeehouse/2015/04/if-ed-miliband-makes-islamophobia-illegal-i-volunteer-to-test-the-new-law-immediately/
So far, other than I think that one "outlier" ICM poll that had UKIP on 7%, all the rest have them in the mid teens.
The Tories whole strategy was predictated on Ed is Crap and that UKIPers would "come home to the Tories". The first has been Ed isn't quite as crap as they hoped (but I don't think it making much difference, as Labour's policies are still blank sheet of paper / mostly crap), the second is making a massive difference.
Some pollsters will end up with very eggy faces on May 8th.
A much more difficult matter will be the composition of the Scottish Affairs Committee which consists of 5 Labour, 3 Tories (what a farce), 2 Lib Dems, and 1 SNP. The SNP member hasn't attended for years since the Labour Chair, Ian Davidson, threatened to bayonet her.
Sorry, correction, he only threatened to give her a doing, it was the losers of the referendum that he threatened to bayonet :-)
The composition of the committee is meant to significantly reflect the composition of the House Of Commons as a whole, but I am sure the SNP will justifiably exploit the issue if the membership is not radically reformed in their favour-I could perhaps see them accepting a limitation to their membership in exchange for significant membership of other plum committees
Survation has them on 51%
They are Britain's hillbillies. West of Scotland = Deliverance
Is there really any more desire to spend untold millions, given the causes of the overspend have not suddenly disappeared?
It's a decision making moment with your gut.
Although the very poor leader ratings in ICM for Miliband (rather than being just poor) perhaps hints that this pollster is a touch too Tory.
And that 4% is somewhat disingenuous...
400 FPTP seats plus 200 done on proportional top-up (NOT losers win like in Wales...) would sort it out.
Patrick Wintour ✔ @patrickwintour
Lord Bell, the Thatcher election guru, says research shows undecided voters fall 2 to one in favour of incumbent. Predicts DC majority
Cameron to resign, Ed to form the weakest government in history, which may collaspe or limp on, but be very very unpopular very quickly.
How many of those people who're telling the pollsters they'll vote UKIP will stand in the box on the 7th, hover over the UKIP box, and then remember Ed Miliband will be Prime Minister tomorrow if they tick there? How many, like me, will hold my nose and vote for Dave?
A fair few I would guess.
Propensity to vote - which supporters will turn-out? Regional variation - Nw & Ldn v Sw & Midlands? Age distribution of support - older Tories/Ukip v younger Lab/SNP? How well are the pollsters picking up those registered to vote or those who didn't vote last time. My inclination as well as rationality think ICM is probably closer. The very sameness of YG and Populus also lends doubt.
The UKIP 15% would displace a similar amount to Labour and the LDs. He'd lose.
Of course, that might just have been because the Cleggasm was a chimera. Whereas this time they have been consistently polling at the 33-35% level for months.
Away from the frenzied contest in Scotland, a subset of the poll shows the Conservatives are running at 38% in England and Wales, five points clear of Labour on 33%.
But there is some comfort for Labour in the even smaller sub-sample of the poll that comes from battleground seats in England and Wales. These are defined as those that Labour won by no more than 10 percentage points in 2010, or the Conservatives won by no more than 15 points.
Labour is running at 40% in these seats, which is up four points on 2010, while the Tories are on 36%, which is down two points. Some caution is needed because the sample in this case is fairly small, but this would suggest the swing to Labour is slightly stronger in these swing seats than across Britain as a whole.
http://www.theguardian.com/politics/2015/apr/27/conservatives-three-point-lead-over-labour-guardian-icm-poll
And lets remind ourselves, he left you , not the other way around.