Howdy, Stranger!

It looks like you're new here. Sign in or register to get started.

Undefined discussion subject.

1234568»

Comments

  • Danny565Danny565 Posts: 8,091
    AndyJS said:

    taffys said:

    ''I can see CON getting to 320 perhaps, but to get to 326 requires not losing any seats if at all to Labour. ''

    And as we know, Broxtowe is already in the bag for the reds.

    I the Tories get 320 the coalition will get 326 easily.
    But the Lib Dems would not necessarily be up for another coalition, especially if Clegg is gone.
  • isamisam Posts: 41,118

    RodCrosby said:

    What would our resident experts, at assessing the odds, rate the chances of a Conservative majority? 20:1, 10:1 or shorter?
    4:1
    Didn't you have it a lot shorter than that at one point, Rod.

    I think it got down as low as 9/2 on Betfair at one stage but my recollection is you were quoting something shorter.
    There us still 2k to bet at 9.2 or bigger on the fair... Why wouldn't you Hoover that up first?!
  • PulpstarPulpstar Posts: 78,415
    Chris123 said:

    Pulpstar said:

    Chris123 said:

    Sorry but the gentleman is completely clueless otherwise he could have figured out that he could have gotten a much higher return by punting on Betfair. I'm afraid, he's approached his "bet" in the same haphazard manner - poor old fool. But you know the old story about "a fool and his money..."
    No he couldn't.

    Take a look at the liquidity and price on NOM.
    9.6 for 1 minus the commission. Surely an accountant would figure out that this makes a difference to a return of 8.
    Cripes. Look at the liquidity, you can't get £30,000 on without taking the price down to Evens or some such, or ~ 1.2 if you lay NOM...
  • BromBrom Posts: 3,760
    Chris123 said:

    Looking at all of the polls, the one I find most credible and consistent is YouGov. Sure, online polls have a self-selecting sample but there's is a pretty large one - almost half a million people. They also poll the same folks so that they can detect market shifts unlike other pollsters. The people that answer landlines are a narrow target group - they're not necessarily reflective of the population as a whole.

    I agree about yougov. Their methods may be incorrect but the frequency does mean they're the most likely to detect shifts in the polls.

  • chestnutchestnut Posts: 7,341
    edited April 2015
    If BMG are a social research outfit that has been working on government contracts they will use genuine randomisation of addresses and individuals to gain contact.

    Presumably they have an e-mail database full of people who have agreed to be contacted for further research.

    People can't choose to sign up without first going through randomised selection.
  • Chris123Chris123 Posts: 174
    Pulpstar said:

    Chris123 said:

    Pulpstar said:

    Chris123 said:

    Sorry but the gentleman is completely clueless otherwise he could have figured out that he could have gotten a much higher return by punting on Betfair. I'm afraid, he's approached his "bet" in the same haphazard manner - poor old fool. But you know the old story about "a fool and his money..."
    No he couldn't.

    Take a look at the liquidity and price on NOM.
    9.6 for 1 minus the commission. Surely an accountant would figure out that this makes a difference to a return of 8.
    Cripes. Look at the liquidity, you can't get £30,000 on without taking the price down to Evens or some such, or ~ 1.2 if you lay NOM...
    Sure you can - just have to wait a little bit. I got almost 10.000 matched in a matter of minutes on the market for most seats.

  • jayfdeejayfdee Posts: 618

    Is the most sensible move for the next Govt to announce after the GE that tax on petrol will be lowered and the tax on diesel increased in a series of steps? That way motorists can plan to exit the noxious diesel cars. Freight transport also needs to be nudged onto rail and cleaner engines.

    http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/the-supreme-court-has-ordered-the-government-to-take-immediate-action-to-stop-the-uks-illegal-and-dangerous-air-pollution-levels-10212454.html

    There is a problem with railfreight. A new EU regulation meant that diesel engines used in trains had to emit less carbon. There was only one problem: no-one makes locomotives for the UK that meet the regulations, and no-one is quite sure if there is a diesel engine that can meet them and fit in the reduced-size UK loading gauge. Instead, people are considering getting old locomotives with poor emissions standards back on track under grandfather rights.

    End result: the regulation's been dropped, I think.

    http://www.railwaymagazine.co.uk/news/lunacy-brussels-bid-to-reduce-exhaust-emissions-backfires
    With diesel engines in cars, I thought they could inject Ammonia (??) into the exhaust to convert the NO2 to something harmless?

    Yes ammonia or some amines,at the right temperature can reduce the NOx back to N2.
    I worked many years on this in large combustion units,many diesels use adblue,seems likely it can be adapted to trains.

  • isamisam Posts: 41,118
    Pulpstar said:

    Chris123 said:

    Pulpstar said:

    Chris123 said:

    Sorry but the gentleman is completely clueless otherwise he could have figured out that he could have gotten a much higher return by punting on Betfair. I'm afraid, he's approached his "bet" in the same haphazard manner - poor old fool. But you know the old story about "a fool and his money..."
    No he couldn't.

    Take a look at the liquidity and price on NOM.
    9.6 for 1 minus the commission. Surely an accountant would figure out that this makes a difference to a return of 8.
    Cripes. Look at the liquidity, you can't get £30,000 on without taking the price down to Evens or some such, or ~ 1.2 if you lay NOM...
    He could have taken all the money on offer above 8.4 though and have the rest at the bookies

    If you were having 30k why not 5k at 7.2/1 after comm and the rest at 7/1 in the lollipop?
  • PulpstarPulpstar Posts: 78,415
    Chris123 said:

    Pulpstar said:

    Chris123 said:

    Pulpstar said:

    Chris123 said:

    Sorry but the gentleman is completely clueless otherwise he could have figured out that he could have gotten a much higher return by punting on Betfair. I'm afraid, he's approached his "bet" in the same haphazard manner - poor old fool. But you know the old story about "a fool and his money..."
    No he couldn't.

    Take a look at the liquidity and price on NOM.
    9.6 for 1 minus the commission. Surely an accountant would figure out that this makes a difference to a return of 8.
    Cripes. Look at the liquidity, you can't get £30,000 on without taking the price down to Evens or some such, or ~ 1.2 if you lay NOM...
    Sure you can - just have to wait a little bit. I got almost 10.000 matched in a matter of minutes on the market for most seats.

    You aren't trying to match £30k though...
  • currystarcurrystar Posts: 1,171
    All this focus on the SNP has made UKIP a bit of irrelevance in the campaign. They are not getting anywhere near the airtime/discussion I thought they would.
  • Chris123Chris123 Posts: 174
    And that market is less liquid than the one on an overall majority.
  • OblitusSumMeOblitusSumMe Posts: 9,143

    RodCrosby said:

    RodCrosby said:

    I cannot believe that all parties except the SNP would be wiped out in Scotland, it just does not seem possible. On the other hand it would make a memorable election night.

    If you live by FPTP, you can die by FPTP.
    And you consider this a bad thing?
    I think a system that grotesquely inflates the largest faction, and leaves all other voters unrepresented (as in the Scottish forecast) is bad. It doesn't just happen in Scotland either.
    All round the country the dominant faction tends to sweep all the seats under FPTP.
    I think a system that means any MP no matter how close to the top of his party can lose is great. An Alexander moment is like the Portillo moment, a possibility only possible due to FPTP.

    In FPTP even safe seats can lose, while in PR being at the top of your party list makes you almost untouchable. Alexander has to answer to his constituency in FPTP, he would be guaranteed to return to Parliament as someone near the top of his parties list in PR.
    PR systems with party lists are bad, for the reason you state. Not all PR systems have party lists. For example, I'm pretty sure that in the last Irish general election, fought under STV, there were seats where Fine Gael incumbents lost their seat to different candidates in their own party, as the party went on to gain lots of seats overall.
  • Chris123Chris123 Posts: 174
    Betfair isn't IPredict. There you would wait for ages.
  • NemtynakhtNemtynakht Posts: 2,329
    I remember when Southam Observer came on here before the last election and insisted he was a floating voter prior to endorsing Gordon Brown. He or she no longer hides their political allegiance. Are Labour going to lose the "shy Labour" vote at this election?

    Daniel said:

    Newstatsman admit Labour hasn't changed enough, but we might as well vote for them. Odd endorsement.

    It called the Southam Observer endorsement. They are shit, but they aren't the Tories. Its the 2015 incarnation of the Polly nosepeg.
  • isamisam Posts: 41,118
    34/32 Tories bt Ukip in Thanet according to Lord A

    Prob Ukip ahead before methodology
  • Philip_ThompsonPhilip_Thompson Posts: 65,826
    My big problem with those who support voting reform is they just ignore totally the fact we had a referendum on this and it was comprehensively rejected. The SNP are being told the issue was "settled for a generation" when it was a very close result, the voting reform referendum was overwhelmingly rejected but that doesn't seem to matter. At least let a whole Parliament pass before bringing it back up, this is worse.

    As for the SNP would they even want a change to the voting system if they win all or vast majority of seats? Yes they previously wanted STV but that was while they were 'hard done by' in Westminster before this breakthrough. Why would the SNP turkeys vote for Christmas and sacrifice most of their MPs in Westminster to Labour.

    If I was in the SNP I'd accept winning a relative Scottish landslide and try to keep all those seats and prioritise getting a second independence referendum. Given the indy referendum was close (and had a vow for more reform that the SNP can argue hasn't been delivered) it should surely be re-ran before a voting referendum that was rejected without a promise of any alternative. The SNP have a perfect excuse to turn down reform and keep their MPs rather than give them up - so why should they decide to cut off their own nose instead?
  • PongPong Posts: 4,693
    Surprising how consistent those polls are.

    Pretty much no change. UKIP vote in South Swindon is especially interesting.
  • TGOHFTGOHF Posts: 21,633
    LA : knife edge stuff.

    Thanet South : Con Hold +2
    Hallam : Lab GAIN +1
    South Swindon : Con Hold +1
  • OblitusSumMeOblitusSumMe Posts: 9,143
    The increase in the Labour vote in South Swindon is risible at just +2.
  • Chris123Chris123 Posts: 174
    It strikes me that there is a real divergence between the Ashcroft national polls and his constituency polls. They don't add up.
  • RodCrosbyRodCrosby Posts: 7,737

    RodCrosby said:

    What would our resident experts, at assessing the odds, rate the chances of a Conservative majority? 20:1, 10:1 or shorter?
    4:1
    Didn't you have it a lot shorter than that at one point, Rod.

    I think it got down as low as 9/2 on Betfair at one stage but my recollection is you were quoting something shorter.
    The L&N model had probabilities up in the 80%s at one point, but they suddenly altered the model (or its inputs/outputs) last month.

    I've always said Con most votes and seats. Majority possible. I don't think I've ever said it was likely.

    OTOH, I've always said a Labour majority was impossible.
  • MarkHopkinsMarkHopkins Posts: 5,584

    new thread

  • Chris123Chris123 Posts: 174
    Concerning Ashcroft, I think his article in which he criticised the Conservative campaign was quite revealing as well:

    http://www.theguardian.com/politics/2015/apr/24/tory-attacks-on-ed-miliband-failing-lord-ashcroft

    This doesn't read like a put a lot of faith in his national polls. Of course, the dial could have shifted in the last few days...
  • initforthemoneyinitforthemoney Posts: 736
    edited April 2015



    In FPTP even safe seats can lose, while in PR being at the top of your party list makes you almost untouchable. Alexander has to answer to his constituency in FPTP, he would be guaranteed to return to Parliament as someone near the top of his parties list in PR.

    Isn't it possible to have a party list system where the candidates on each party's list are ordered randomly (or not ordered and elected candidates are drawn out of a hat comprising everyone on the list after the election)? The only way parties could guarantee keeping their top candidates safe then would be to run too few candidates on their lists, but that would condemn them to ever decreasing influence.
  • DairDair Posts: 6,108

    My big problem with those who support voting reform is they just ignore totally the fact we had a referendum on this and it was comprehensively rejected. The SNP are being told the issue was "settled for a generation" when it was a very close result, the voting reform referendum was overwhelmingly rejected but that doesn't seem to matter. At least let a whole Parliament pass before bringing it back up, this is worse.

    AV is not Propotional Representation or anything like PR.

    It is a gerrymander of the FPTP system to benefit the third party.
  • dr_spyn said:
    Was anyone standing for Tower Hamlets First in the local or general election? If they were, what impact does this have on them? Does their candidature become invalid, because they listed themselves as members of a now defunct party, or is their party affiliation just left blank on the ballot paper?

    If Tower Hamlets First ignores this ruling and tries to continue acting like a recognised party - sending observers to polling stations, etc - would they be breaking any laws? In the worst case, arresting a Tower Hamlets First representative at a polling station for illegal behaviour could cause disturbances, and some of the other parties' people may object vigorously if the Tower Hamlets First representatives are allowed to stay.

This discussion has been closed.