Among the unusual feedback from election emails I got this one today from someone I'd written to as Ms ... rather than "Sally":
"I also really appreciate your use of formal address, given that we've never met. I know that's quite trivial, but it does make me feel that you respect me as an equal. Thank you."
I'm conscious that many younger people don't even know the last names of their friends, but it still irritates me a bit when parties and NGOs send me computer-generated stuff saying "Nick, you can help change the future of..." The unsolicited chumminess strikes an entirely false note to my ears. Is that a common view, or just a fusty anachronism? Presumably it's all market-researched...
Among the unusual feedback from election emails I got this one today from someone I'd written to as Ms ... rather than "Sally":
"I also really appreciate your use of formal address, given that we've never met. I know that's quite trivial, but it does make me feel that you respect me as an equal. Thank you."
I'm conscious that many younger people don't even know the last names of their friends, but it still irritates me a bit when parties and NGOs send me computer-generated stuff saying "Nick, you can help change the future of..." The unsolicited chumminess strikes an entirely false note to my ears. Is that a common view, or just a fusty anachronism? Presumably it's all market-researched...
It's not fusty. It's just good manners.
I think it *was* good manners.
Manners have changed, and will continue to change.
Etiquette changes. Having good manners is an inherent state of mind.
The world's whackiest election result, quite possibly...
Well >60% IIRC voted to keep the system
... on a referendum giving them a choice between two majoritarian systems. AV would probably see the SNP get a few less seats and the LibDems a few more, but it would still be a long way from proportionality.
SNP will get about the same vote share as the Greens, and way less than the LibDems or UKIP, but substantially more seats than LibDems, UKIP and Greens put together. The very outcome of this election, with the SNP as kingmakers, is a result of FPTP favouring them compared to UKIP, LibDems or Greens.
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.
Labour 201-225 at 16-1 is better than Con Maj I reckon...
There are a grand total of 11 Lab/LD seats in play and if the Conservatives get a majority its highly unlikely to be more than 340 or so. Labour sub 200 is a very long shot indeed.
I learnt today from Mark Senior that pollsters apply a turnover correction first. Therefore, all regions are not equally. So, the number of Northeners will be lowered in the final total because of 2010 turnout history.
In 2010, many Labour voters did not vote [ stayed at home ] but did not vote for any other party. This would be two elections in a row, Iraq in 2005 and unhappiness in 2010.
Among the unusual feedback from election emails I got this one today from someone I'd written to as Ms ... rather than "Sally":
"I also really appreciate your use of formal address, given that we've never met. I know that's quite trivial, but it does make me feel that you respect me as an equal. Thank you."
I'm conscious that many younger people don't even know the last names of their friends, but it still irritates me a bit when parties and NGOs send me computer-generated stuff saying "Nick, you can help change the future of..." The unsolicited chumminess strikes an entirely false note to my ears. Is that a common view, or just a fusty anachronism? Presumably it's all market-researched...
Among the unusual feedback from election emails I got this one today from someone I'd written to as Ms ... rather than "Sally":
"I also really appreciate your use of formal address, given that we've never met. I know that's quite trivial, but it does make me feel that you respect me as an equal. Thank you."
I'm conscious that many younger people don't even know the last names of their friends, but it still irritates me a bit when parties and NGOs send me computer-generated stuff saying "Nick, you can help change the future of..." The unsolicited chumminess strikes an entirely false note to my ears. Is that a common view, or just a fusty anachronism? Presumably it's all market-researched...
It's not fusty. It's just good manners.
I think it *was* good manners.
Manners have changed, and will continue to change.
Etiquette changes. Having good manners is an inherent state of mind.
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.
Rubbish.
You do not understand the United Kingdom. Or indeed very much else.
He got a real purdy mouth ain't he? I bet you can squeal like a pig. Weeeeeeee!
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.
That's why I'm not taking too much notice of the polls Ms Plato. On a personal level, I'm telling them one thing but have already decided to do something else.
I suspect that course of action will be exaggerated the nearer we get.
I find the hubris of some of the Labour guys on here quite staggering, all things considered.
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. ....
Its a Guardian reporter whistling in the dark. The sub sub sample must be microscopic.
What can we learn about UKIP's likely performance relative to the polls from other European countries?
Is UKIP on 18% (Survation) or 10% (ComRes)? Are phone pollsters suffering from shy Kippers, or are on-line pollsters boosted by highly engaged activists?
I thought I'd go and look at elections in Europe where insurgent parties have made great progress, and see if there's anything to learn. Now: don't get me wrong, I'm not suggesting that UKIP is like the Front National, or Podemos, or the Finns, or the PVV. All I'm doing is looking in these countries and seeing whether phone or internet pollsters are more accurate at predicting x's in boxes.
So, first up, Finland's General Election.
A remarkably un-polled election! According to Wikipedia, only three pollsters took part - and they all appear to be phone pollsters:
Pollster Type Finns Taloustukimus Phone 16.7 TNS Gallup Phone 16.2 Tietoykkonen Phone 16.6
Actual Result 17.7
Result: phone pollsters underestimated the Finns' share by a little more than 1%.
Next: France and polling for the recent departmental elections.
We have the opposite issue in France, in that all the pollsters used Internet panels.
Pollster Type FN Opinion Way Internet 29 Harris Internet 29 Ipsos Internet 29 Odoxa Internet 29 Ifop Internet 30
Actual Result 25.2
Result: internet pollsters over-estimated the FN by 4 to 5%.
I was going to do Greece, but was unable to work out which pollsters were internet and which were phone, so hard to draw any definitive conclusions. For the record, of the last 10 polls, five underestimated SYRIZA's share, and five overestimated it.
Now to Spain where there were elections to the Andalucia parliament.
Here we have a lot of polls, and a fair amount of divergence in the likely result:
Pollster Type Podemos Encuestamos ? 14.8 JM&A ? 18.3 NC-Report Phone 15.2 Deimos ? 16.4 Celeste-Tel Phone 14.7 GAD3 Phone 15.5 Sigma-2 ? 15.2 Metroscopia Phone 14.7 My Word Internet 19.9
Actual Result 14.9
Result: Podemos scored at the low end of the range of polls. However, it would appear (and I would caveat that we only know the type of half the polls), that the phone pollsters were much more accurate than the Internet ones who appeared to over-estimate Podemos by 4 to 5%.
Comments
That was their problem when Mr Cameron became leader in 2005, it still is.
p.40
http://survation.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/02/Feb-Mirror-tables.pdf
SNP will get about the same vote share as the Greens, and way less than the LibDems or UKIP, but substantially more seats than LibDems, UKIP and Greens put together. The very outcome of this election, with the SNP as kingmakers, is a result of FPTP favouring them compared to UKIP, LibDems or Greens.
Con 326
SNP 50
LD 25
NI 18
Green 1
Respect
PC 4
Leaves Labour 225 seats.
Labour 201-225 at 16-1 is better than Con Maj I reckon...
There are a grand total of 11 Lab/LD seats in play and if the Conservatives get a majority its highly unlikely to be more than 340 or so. Labour sub 200 is a very long shot indeed.
4% disingenuous? How so?
The longer FPTP is kept, the more bonkers the results will become, until finally, sanity will prevail...
In 2010, many Labour voters did not vote [ stayed at home ] but did not vote for any other party. This would be two elections in a row, Iraq in 2005 and unhappiness in 2010.
So, Labour could be slightly underweighted ?
David Cameron: Small Business Manifesto launch
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1nUOgiRWK1o
You do not understand the United Kingdom. Or indeed very much else.
He got a real purdy mouth ain't he? I bet you can squeal like a pig. Weeeeeeee!
I suspect that course of action will be exaggerated the nearer we get.
I find the hubris of some of the Labour guys on here quite staggering, all things considered.
Is UKIP on 18% (Survation) or 10% (ComRes)? Are phone pollsters suffering from shy Kippers, or are on-line pollsters boosted by highly engaged activists?
I thought I'd go and look at elections in Europe where insurgent parties have made great progress, and see if there's anything to learn. Now: don't get me wrong, I'm not suggesting that UKIP is like the Front National, or Podemos, or the Finns, or the PVV. All I'm doing is looking in these countries and seeing whether phone or internet pollsters are more accurate at predicting x's in boxes.
So, first up, Finland's General Election.
A remarkably un-polled election! According to Wikipedia, only three pollsters took part - and they all appear to be phone pollsters: Result: phone pollsters underestimated the Finns' share by a little more than 1%.
Next: France and polling for the recent departmental elections.
We have the opposite issue in France, in that all the pollsters used Internet panels. Result: internet pollsters over-estimated the FN by 4 to 5%.
I was going to do Greece, but was unable to work out which pollsters were internet and which were phone, so hard to draw any definitive conclusions. For the record, of the last 10 polls, five underestimated SYRIZA's share, and five overestimated it.
Now to Spain where there were elections to the Andalucia parliament.
Here we have a lot of polls, and a fair amount of divergence in the likely result: Result: Podemos scored at the low end of the range of polls. However, it would appear (and I would caveat that we only know the type of half the polls), that the phone pollsters were much more accurate than the Internet ones who appeared to over-estimate Podemos by 4 to 5%.
Calm down dear.
Careful now!