The Independent's sub-heading catches the eye - "~Seventy per cent of voters think the SNP should not be allowed to veto English laws". That's going to complicate coalition-building for Ed Miliband.
Really confused about this election right now. Look where Ed Miliband was today - Bedford and Warwickshire North! That's their number 1 Tory target for goodness sake. I've never known the polls be so out of line with where the party leaders are visiting. Look at Cameron - he's gone to so many of the Lib Dem target seats they have as well as Hendon today which I'd got as a dead cert Labour gain. Can anyone explain this complete disconnect between the polls and party leader visits?
Wait until you find out where the Prime Minister is holding his eve of election rally. Will make your head explode.
Really confused about this election right now. Look where Ed Miliband was today - Bedford and Warwickshire North! That's their number 1 Tory target for goodness sake. I've never known the polls be so out of line with where the party leaders are visiting. Look at Cameron - he's gone to so many of the Lib Dem target seats they have as well as Hendon today which I'd got as a dead cert Labour gain. Can anyone explain this complete disconnect between the polls and party leader visits?
Wait until you find out where the Prime Minister is holding his eve of election rally. Will make your head explode.
Just had an e-mail from William Hague (ahem) asking me on GOTV on Thursday, which would seem like a good proxy for where the Conservatives are defending or think they can take seats.
The following came back within 25 miles of N London:
Finchley / Golders Green Sutton and Cheam Enfield North Thurrock Twickenham Hendon Battersea Stevenage Watford Ealing C Harrow East Ilford North Harrow West S Basildon / E Thurrock Brentford / Isleworth Hampstead and Kilburn Croydon Central Kingston and Surbiton
So no Carshalton but seems like the Conservatives still think they can bump off Vince (despite Geoffrey's endorsement) and take H&K.
I then thought why not do round my parents in Manchester and then upped it to 100 miles. The following came back:
Pendle Pudsey Halesowen / Rowley Regis Dudley North Lincoln Cannock Chase Chester Dudley South Northampton North Hazel Grove Nuneaton Dewsbury Erewash Birmingham Northfield Bury North Blackpool North Stockton South Loughborough Middlesborough South / E Cleveland Sherwood Solihull Keighley Halifax Telford Warrington South Colne Valley Elmet and Rothwell Louth and Horncastle Derby North High Peak Morley and Outwood Corby Wirral West Morecame and Lunesdale Wolverhampton SE Rossendale and Darwen Sherwood Amber Valley Cheadle Lancaster and Fleetwood Weaver Vale Boston and Skegness NE Derbyshire N Warwickshire Walsall North
Not sure how these correspond to the 40/40 strategy but a few individual seats sprung to mind: (1) they think they can still take Ed B; (2) was surprised at Cheadle, which I had thought would be very likely LD; (3) no mention of Chorley, which some had mentioned as a possible Con gain from Labour; (4) North West strategy all about holding seats but the Conservatives think they can take several from Labour in the West Midlands and a few in Yorkshire.
Not sure how much of this is new / illuminating.
Sorry, Andrea - I had missed out Broxtowe by mistake. As someone said earlier though, interesting Crewe not on the list (I went through it again to make sure I had not missed more out).
I'm beginning to think that everyone should vote tactically for the party most likely to win to save us all from the horrible prospect of having to re-run what must be the most goddam awful GE ever before the end of the year.
How about adding a few extras into the next campaign eg cricket 'power plays' and 'jokers' from Its A Knockout.
How about electrocuting the testicles of any politician who reverts to "you cant govern without the SNP" or cries repeatedly about being shouted at in the streets by mad Scotsmen.
Don't understand all the activity in Hampstead & Kilburn - the Tories haven't got a chance in a month of Sundays there surely?!
I think a lot of the Tory optimism is about how in 2010 no-one expected them to take the seat and yet they nearly did. Since then, the area has gentrified a lot around the W Hampstead / Kilburn bit.
As a probably useless anecdote, my neighbour said he had been approached by Keir Starmer in Highgate - very nice apparently, but my neighbour gave him an earful over the mansion tax. Starmer apparently then said he has been hearing that a lot. If it is being said in Holborn and St Pancras, I can imagine it is even more so in H&K
Thanks for the info. Still doesn't make sense to me whatsoever! I'll be damned if that's a Tory gain on Friday morning!
Agreed but I don't think you can write it off - the Mansion Tax is the number one issue in London.
I also think Holborn and SP could be interesting in future elections - the north of the constituency around Kentish Town has gentrified massively in the last five years and KX is now going the same way...!
Don't understand all the activity in Hampstead & Kilburn - the Tories haven't got a chance in a month of Sundays there surely?!
I think a lot of the Tory optimism is about how in 2010 no-one expected them to take the seat and yet they nearly did. Since then, the area has gentrified a lot around the W Hampstead / Kilburn bit.
As a probably useless anecdote, my neighbour said he had been approached by Keir Starmer in Highgate - very nice apparently, but my neighbour gave him an earful over the mansion tax. Starmer apparently then said he has been hearing that a lot. If it is being said in Holborn and St Pancras, I can imagine it is even more so in H&K
Thanks for the info. Still doesn't make sense to me whatsoever! I'll be damned if that's a Tory gain on Friday morning!
Half my work colleagues seem to live in H&K, while the othe other half are in Hornsey & Wood Green, while I'm stuck in boring, safe H&StP! They're all Labour/considering Green, but then we're a bunch of academics and not remotely representative.
I will be very surprised if H&K goes blue. It was a 3-way marginal last time, so there's a big LD vote that will have haemorrhaged to Labour, so mansion tax or not, I can't see the Tories winning it now.
Really confused about this election right now. Look where Ed Miliband was today - Bedford and Warwickshire North! That's their number 1 Tory target for goodness sake. I've never known the polls be so out of line with where the party leaders are visiting. Look at Cameron - he's gone to so many of the Lib Dem target seats they have as well as Hendon today which I'd got as a dead cert Labour gain. Can anyone explain this complete disconnect between the polls and party leader visits?
Wait until you find out where the Prime Minister is holding his eve of election rally. Will make your head explode.
Really confused about this election right now. Look where Ed Miliband was today - Bedford and Warwickshire North! That's their number 1 Tory target for goodness sake. I've never known the polls be so out of line with where the party leaders are visiting. Look at Cameron - he's gone to so many of the Lib Dem target seats they have as well as Hendon today which I'd got as a dead cert Labour gain. Can anyone explain this complete disconnect between the polls and party leader visits?
Wait until you find out where the Prime Minister is holding his eve of election rally. Will make your head explode.
Don't understand all the activity in Hampstead & Kilburn - the Tories haven't got a chance in a month of Sundays there surely?!
I think a lot of the Tory optimism is about how in 2010 no-one expected them to take the seat and yet they nearly did. Since then, the area has gentrified a lot around the W Hampstead / Kilburn bit.
As a probably useless anecdote, my neighbour said he had been approached by Keir Starmer in Highgate - very nice apparently, but my neighbour gave him an earful over the mansion tax. Starmer apparently then said he has been hearing that a lot. If it is being said in Holborn and St Pancras, I can imagine it is even more so in H&K
Thanks for the info. Still doesn't make sense to me whatsoever! I'll be damned if that's a Tory gain on Friday morning!
Agreed but I don't think you can write it off - the Mansion Tax is the number one issue in London.
I also think Holborn and SP could be interesting in future elections - the north of the constituency around Kentish Town has gentrified massively in the last five years and KX is now going the same way...!
Neither the Tories nor Labour have really gone big on Mansion Tax in the national media. Maybe they have in London markets?
Really confused about this election right now. Look where Ed Miliband was today - Bedford and Warwickshire North! That's their number 1 Tory target for goodness sake. I've never known the polls be so out of line with where the party leaders are visiting. Look at Cameron - he's gone to so many of the Lib Dem target seats they have as well as Hendon today which I'd got as a dead cert Labour gain. Can anyone explain this complete disconnect between the polls and party leader visits?
Wait until you find out where the Prime Minister is holding his eve of election rally. Will make your head explode.
Really confused about this election right now. Look where Ed Miliband was today - Bedford and Warwickshire North! That's their number 1 Tory target for goodness sake. I've never known the polls be so out of line with where the party leaders are visiting. Look at Cameron - he's gone to so many of the Lib Dem target seats they have as well as Hendon today which I'd got as a dead cert Labour gain. Can anyone explain this complete disconnect between the polls and party leader visits?
Wait until you find out where the Prime Minister is holding his eve of election rally. Will make your head explode.
The Independent's sub-heading catches the eye - "~Seventy per cent of voters think the SNP should not be allowed to veto English laws". That's going to complicate coalition-building for Ed Miliband.
And what was Clegg doing saying we could have to do it all again in a few months?
I take that as an instruction to vote for the big two to gain a conclusive result, not the muddying of the waters that results from a minor party vote.
Really confused about this election right now. Look where Ed Miliband was today - Bedford and Warwickshire North! That's their number 1 Tory target for goodness sake. I've never known the polls be so out of line with where the party leaders are visiting. Look at Cameron - he's gone to so many of the Lib Dem target seats they have as well as Hendon today which I'd got as a dead cert Labour gain. Can anyone explain this complete disconnect between the polls and party leader visits?
Wait until you find out where the Prime Minister is holding his eve of election rally. Will make your head explode.
Really confused about this election right now. Look where Ed Miliband was today - Bedford and Warwickshire North! That's their number 1 Tory target for goodness sake. I've never known the polls be so out of line with where the party leaders are visiting. Look at Cameron - he's gone to so many of the Lib Dem target seats they have as well as Hendon today which I'd got as a dead cert Labour gain. Can anyone explain this complete disconnect between the polls and party leader visits?
Wait until you find out where the Prime Minister is holding his eve of election rally. Will make your head explode.
It doesn't look as if the UKIP vote is shifting to Tories at all. Well not if any of the polls are anywhere close to right. No EU Referendum in 2017 then.
If 3% (of the vote) switched Tory-UkIP and 3% of the vote switched UKIP-Tory then you wouldn't see anything at all in the polls - but the voter effectiveness would go way up.
In this crazy election there could even be Tory-LibDem (as in Sheffield) and LibDem-Tory (in the blue-red marginals) since the LDs lost most of the naturally labour supporters post 2010.
Don't understand all the activity in Hampstead & Kilburn - the Tories haven't got a chance in a month of Sundays there surely?!
I think a lot of the Tory optimism is about how in 2010 no-one expected them to take the seat and yet they nearly did. Since then, the area has gentrified a lot around the W Hampstead / Kilburn bit.
As a probably useless anecdote, my neighbour said he had been approached by Keir Starmer in Highgate - very nice apparently, but my neighbour gave him an earful over the mansion tax. Starmer apparently then said he has been hearing that a lot. If it is being said in Holborn and St Pancras, I can imagine it is even more so in H&K
Thanks for the info. Still doesn't make sense to me whatsoever! I'll be damned if that's a Tory gain on Friday morning!
Half my work colleagues seem to live in H&K, while the othe other half are in Hornsey & Wood Green, while I'm stuck in boring, safe H&StP! They're all Labour/considering Green, but then we're a bunch of academics and not remotely representative.
I will be very surprised if H&K goes blue. It was a 3-way marginal last time, so there's a big LD vote that will have haemorrhaged to Labour, so mansion tax or not, I can't see the Tories winning it now.
Don't understand all the activity in Hampstead & Kilburn - the Tories haven't got a chance in a month of Sundays there surely?!
I think a lot of the Tory optimism is about how in 2010 no-one expected them to take the seat and yet they nearly did. Since then, the area has gentrified a lot around the W Hampstead / Kilburn bit.
As a probably useless anecdote, my neighbour said he had been approached by Keir Starmer in Highgate - very nice apparently, but my neighbour gave him an earful over the mansion tax. Starmer apparently then said he has been hearing that a lot. If it is being said in Holborn and St Pancras, I can imagine it is even more so in H&K
Thanks for the info. Still doesn't make sense to me whatsoever! I'll be damned if that's a Tory gain on Friday morning!
Agreed but I don't think you can write it off - the Mansion Tax is the number one issue in London.
I also think Holborn and SP could be interesting in future elections - the north of the constituency around Kentish Town has gentrified massively in the last five years and KX is now going the same way...!
Neither the Tories nor Labour have really gone big on Mansion Tax in the national media. Maybe they have in London markets?
The way the Tories have played it (at least in the leaflets that were delivered) were to say: (1) you think you will not be impacted? Look at the average price in the constituency and take the growth rates; (2) some Labour MPs are talking about taking it to £1m and (3) that Labour would tie any Mansion Tax in with a re-evaluation of the Council Tax bands and you are all facing massive increases - funnily enough, the last one had the most impact on me.
Con 35% (+2) Lab 32% (-1) Lib Dem 9% (+1) UKIP 14% (+1) Green 4% (-3) Others 6% (No change)
GET IN.
What's the UK numbers ?
My mistake. those are UK numbers. E&W: Tories are on 37%, Labour on 33%, UKIP 15%, LD 8%.
Thanks. Then my effort was not wasted.
Based on these GB numbers but calculating E&W and Scotland separately, UNS forecast
[ except 3 adjustments for UKIP ]
CON 286 LAB 270 LD 15 SNP 53 GRN 1 PC 3 UKIP 3 SPK 1
Good score for the Tories ! But UKIP numbers are good. Therefore, keeping CON in check. LD not doing well by UNS.
I have made no individual personal adjustments apart from the 3 UKIP above.
OK. I have now done it the opposite way. Used the Comres E&W figures first and then matched the GB wide figures [ I have to say the Scotland sub set is garbage ! ]
Anyway, here goes:
CON 283 LAB 278 LD 16 SNP 47 [ I doubt this very much ! ] GRN 1 PC 3 UKIP 3 SPK 1
Off topic: I am an counting agent in Edinburgh on Thursday night/Friday morning. Do they usually have screens with the incoming results elsewhere at the count?
Don't understand all the activity in Hampstead & Kilburn - the Tories haven't got a chance in a month of Sundays there surely?!
I think a lot of the Tory optimism is about how in 2010 no-one expected them to take the seat and yet they nearly did. Since then, the area has gentrified a lot around the W Hampstead / Kilburn bit.
As a probably useless anecdote, my neighbour said he had been approached by Keir Starmer in Highgate - very nice apparently, but my neighbour gave him an earful over the mansion tax. Starmer apparently then said he has been hearing that a lot. If it is being said in Holborn and St Pancras, I can imagine it is even more so in H&K
Thanks for the info. Still doesn't make sense to me whatsoever! I'll be damned if that's a Tory gain on Friday morning!
Agreed but I don't think you can write it off - the Mansion Tax is the number one issue in London.
I also think Holborn and SP could be interesting in future elections - the north of the constituency around Kentish Town has gentrified massively in the last five years and KX is now going the same way...!
Neither the Tories nor Labour have really gone big on Mansion Tax in the national media. Maybe they have in London markets?
It's actually a net vote winner for Labour, even in a place like Hampstead, which is a lot more mixed than those who have never visited tend to think.
The personal image attacks weren't working The Sun, for gods sake stop it!
Harmless and fun,better than the made up front page of the leftwig rag the mirror
I don't begrudge them their fun, but I think that particular gag has had its time, and has in any case used up its effectiveness, which is what The Sun wants to be right now. But they know their business better than me I guess.
Don't understand all the activity in Hampstead & Kilburn - the Tories haven't got a chance in a month of Sundays there surely?!
I think a lot of the Tory optimism is about how in 2010 no-one expected them to take the seat and yet they nearly did. Since then, the area has gentrified a lot around the W Hampstead / Kilburn bit.
As a probably useless anecdote, my neighbour said he had been approached by Keir Starmer in Highgate - very nice apparently, but my neighbour gave him an earful over the mansion tax. Starmer apparently then said he has been hearing that a lot. If it is being said in Holborn and St Pancras, I can imagine it is even more so in H&K
Thanks for the info. Still doesn't make sense to me whatsoever! I'll be damned if that's a Tory gain on Friday morning!
Agreed but I don't think you can write it off - the Mansion Tax is the number one issue in London.
I also think Holborn and SP could be interesting in future elections - the north of the constituency around Kentish Town has gentrified massively in the last five years and KX is now going the same way...!
Very big concentrations of council housing across the constituency and a lot of private tenants on top. It'll be Labour for a long time yet.
I'm beginning to think that everyone should vote tactically for the party most likely to win to save us all from the horrible prospect of having to re-run what must be the most goddam awful GE ever before the end of the year.
I'm watching "Ballot Monkeys" on E4+1. I'm looking at the front page of the Sun. I'm confused: which is the fictional satire and which is published by adults with mortgages?
I'm beginning to think that everyone should vote tactically for the party most likely to win to save us all from the horrible prospect of having to re-run what must be the most goddam awful GE ever before the end of the year.
Don't understand all the activity in Hampstead & Kilburn - the Tories haven't got a chance in a month of Sundays there surely?!
I think a lot of the Tory optimism is about how in 2010 no-one expected them to take the seat and yet they nearly did. Since then, the area has gentrified a lot around the W Hampstead / Kilburn bit.
As a probably useless anecdote, my neighbour said he had been approached by Keir Starmer in Highgate - very nice apparently, but my neighbour gave him an earful over the mansion tax. Starmer apparently then said he has been hearing that a lot. If it is being said in Holborn and St Pancras, I can imagine it is even more so in H&K
Thanks for the info. Still doesn't make sense to me whatsoever! I'll be damned if that's a Tory gain on Friday morning!
Half my work colleagues seem to live in H&K, while the othe other half are in Hornsey & Wood Green, while I'm stuck in boring, safe H&StP! They're all Labour/considering Green, but then we're a bunch of academics and not remotely representative.
I will be very surprised if H&K goes blue. It was a 3-way marginal last time, so there's a big LD vote that will have haemorrhaged to Labour, so mansion tax or not, I can't see the Tories winning it now.
Sadly (central/north London is my homeland, along with Cornwall) I reckon all these seats will be red. Also Golders Green.
More happily, I think Cornwall will go almost entirely blue. Only North Cornwall will hold out for the LDs.
Off topic: I am an counting agent in Edinburgh on Thursday night/Friday morning. Do they usually have screens with the incoming results elsewhere at the count?
The last time I was at the Edinburgh count (1997) I took a portable TV. IIRC the screens inside just had the local results.
Really confused about this election right now. Look where Ed Miliband was today - Bedford and Warwickshire North! That's their number 1 Tory target for goodness sake. I've never known the polls be so out of line with where the party leaders are visiting. Look at Cameron - he's gone to so many of the Lib Dem target seats they have as well as Hendon today which I'd got as a dead cert Labour gain. Can anyone explain this complete disconnect between the polls and party leader visits?
Wait until you find out where the Prime Minister is holding his eve of election rally. Will make your head explode.
I don't think the Sun Front Page is that good, because everybody has seen the image, its a done joke.
You have to have something that will make people stop and look, but its a bit like seeing a Mirror headline with Tories Baby Eating Scum or Mail banging on about immigrants.
Richard Dawkins (@RichardDawkins) 05/05/2015 20:24 I’ve never voted Tory in my life and probably never will. But @Ayaan makes a better case than any I’ve seen. thetimes.co.uk/tto/opinion/co…
That's a classic Sun front page. Kudos. They can still do it when called upon.
Is it. Ed Miliband chewing a butty. Has that how desperate it has become for the Tories.
Er, what? This is coming from a supporter of the party that chiselled its enervatingly vacuous pledges into a specially commissioned £30,000 Eight Foot High Limestone Policy Obelisk, to show how *serious* they were about fulfilling its Six Aspirations of Nothingness.
Really. You spent thirty thousand quid carving "Controls on Immigration" into a slab of stone, in the hope that this might persuade wavering voters who had hitherto seen this entirely meaningless statement merely printed on paper.
The tragedy for this country is that the vacuous PR drivel that spills from Cameron's maw is no better.
Off topic: I am an counting agent in Edinburgh on Thursday night/Friday morning. Do they usually have screens with the incoming results elsewhere at the count?
The last time I was at the Edinburgh count (1997) I took a portable TV. IIRC the screens inside just had the local results.
Off topic: I am an counting agent in Edinburgh on Thursday night/Friday morning. Do they usually have screens with the incoming results elsewhere at the count?
The last time I was at the Edinburgh count (1997) I took a portable TV. IIRC the screens inside just had the local results.
Take your phone and watch twitter.
Thanks Scott, though I have a feeling the count itself will be exciting enough!
Don't understand all the activity in Hampstead & Kilburn - the Tories haven't got a chance in a month of Sundays there surely?!
I think a lot of the Tory optimism is about how in 2010 no-one expected them to take the seat and yet they nearly did. Since then, the area has gentrified a lot around the W Hampstead / Kilburn bit.
As a probably useless anecdote, my neighbour said he had been approached by Keir Starmer in Highgate - very nice apparently, but my neighbour gave him an earful over the mansion tax. Starmer apparently then said he has been hearing that a lot. If it is being said in Holborn and St Pancras, I can imagine it is even more so in H&K
Thanks for the info. Still doesn't make sense to me whatsoever! I'll be damned if that's a Tory gain on Friday morning!
Agreed but I don't think you can write it off - the Mansion Tax is the number one issue in London.
I also think Holborn and SP could be interesting in future elections - the north of the constituency around Kentish Town has gentrified massively in the last five years and KX is now going the same way...!
Neither the Tories nor Labour have really gone big on Mansion Tax in the national media. Maybe they have in London markets?
It's actually a net vote winner for Labour, even in a place like Hampstead, which is a lot more mixed than those who have never visited tend to think.
It sure is. My grandparents lived in a flat on a council estate in Swiss Cottage. People only see the large houses, but there are big lumps of social housing across the constituency, like almost all the inner London seats. No wonder the Tories want to sell it off!
The personal image attacks weren't working The Sun, for gods sake stop it!
Harmless and fun,better than the made up front page of the leftwig rag the mirror
I don't begrudge them their fun, but I think that particular gag has had its time, and has in any case used up its effectiveness, which is what The Sun wants to be right now. But they know their business better than me I guess.
The picture from his student days would have been better if they had to go down the personally offensive route #sunslipping
I'm watching "Ballot Monkeys" on E4+1. I'm looking at the front page of the Sun. I'm confused: which is the fictional satire and which is published by adults with mortgages?
I watched Mavericks on C4, about the brilliant footballers from the seventies and eighties.
I've seen play live virtually every top player since 1963, including Pele, and the young Alan Hudson is the best player I have ever seen bar George Best.
Don't understand all the activity in Hampstead & Kilburn - the Tories haven't got a chance in a month of Sundays there surely?!
I think a lot of the Tory optimism is about how in 2010 no-one expected them to take the seat and yet they nearly did. Since then, the area has gentrified a lot around the W Hampstead / Kilburn bit.
As a probably useless anecdote, my neighbour said he had been approached by Keir Starmer in Highgate - very nice apparently, but my neighbour gave him an earful over the mansion tax. Starmer apparently then said he has been hearing that a lot. If it is being said in Holborn and St Pancras, I can imagine it is even more so in H&K
Thanks for the info. Still doesn't make sense to me whatsoever! I'll be damned if that's a Tory gain on Friday morning!
Agreed but I don't think you can write it off - the Mansion Tax is the number one issue in London.
I also think Holborn and SP could be interesting in future elections - the north of the constituency around Kentish Town has gentrified massively in the last five years and KX is now going the same way...!
Neither the Tories nor Labour have really gone big on Mansion Tax in the national media. Maybe they have in London markets?
It's actually a net vote winner for Labour, even in a place like Hampstead, which is a lot more mixed than those who have never visited tend to think.
Indeed, I suspect the Tories have gone quiet on the mansion tax because it polls well, even among groups that you might not necessarily expect.
Don't understand all the activity in Hampstead & Kilburn - the Tories haven't got a chance in a month of Sundays there surely?!
I think a lot of the Tory optimism is about how in 2010 no-one expected them to take the seat and yet they nearly did. Since then, the area has gentrified a lot around the W Hampstead / Kilburn bit.
As a probably useless anecdote, my neighbour said he had been approached by Keir Starmer in Highgate - very nice apparently, but my neighbour gave him an earful over the mansion tax. Starmer apparently then said he has been hearing that a lot. If it is being said in Holborn and St Pancras, I can imagine it is even more so in H&K
Thanks for the info. Still doesn't make sense to me whatsoever! I'll be damned if that's a Tory gain on Friday morning!
Agreed but I don't think you can write it off - the Mansion Tax is the number one issue in London.
I also think Holborn and SP could be interesting in future elections - the north of the constituency around Kentish Town has gentrified massively in the last five years and KX is now going the same way...!
The following is a list of constituencies which Labour has lost because of metropolitan gentrification during the last 25 years:
Can anyone ferret out decimal point results for today's polls. I recall recently there was a poll where a 4 % lead in fact had something like a decimal .6 rounded up then a .4 rounded down when in fact the consistently applied decimal lead would have been something like 3.1% which should have been rounded to 3% really..
Don't understand all the activity in Hampstead & Kilburn - the Tories haven't got a chance in a month of Sundays there surely?!
I think a lot of the Tory optimism is about how in 2010 no-one expected them to take the seat and yet they nearly did. Since then, the area has gentrified a lot around the W Hampstead / Kilburn bit.
As a probably useless anecdote, my neighbour said he had been approached by Keir Starmer in Highgate - very nice apparently, but my neighbour gave him an earful over the mansion tax. Starmer apparently then said he has been hearing that a lot. If it is being said in Holborn and St Pancras, I can imagine it is even more so in H&K
Thanks for the info. Still doesn't make sense to me whatsoever! I'll be damned if that's a Tory gain on Friday morning!
Agreed but I don't think you can write it off - the Mansion Tax is the number one issue in London.
I also think Holborn and SP could be interesting in future elections - the north of the constituency around Kentish Town has gentrified massively in the last five years and KX is now going the same way...!
The following is a list of constituencies which Labour has lost because of metropolitan gentrification during the last 25 years:
To be fair it looks more like: Wandsworth Eh That's it
I don't think the Sun Front Page is that good, because everybody has seen the image, its a done joke.
You have to have something that will make people stop and look, but its a bit like seeing a Mirror headline with Tories Baby Eating Scum or Mail banging on about immigrants.
I think these stupid personal attacks add nothing to our democracy or our media. They are not even funny.
Monkey Ballots today or Spitting Image in the past are/were clever and incisive. They were both funny and able to make a serious point even if one didn't agree with the point they were making.
The Sun front pages are just sad and bitter. I am not even sure they will change a single vote (at least I hope they won't even though I can't stand Miliband).
People call the Sun a comic. Personally I think that is an insult to comics.
That's a classic Sun front page. Kudos. They can still do it when called upon.
Is it. Ed Miliband chewing a butty. Has that how desperate it has become for the Tories.
Er, what? This is coming from a supporter of the party that chiselled its enervatingly vacuous pledges into a specially commissioned £30,000 Eight Foot High Limestone Policy Obelisk, to show how *serious* they were about fulfilling its Six Aspirations of Nothingness.
Really. You spent thirty thousand quid carving "Controls on Immigration" into a slab of stone, in the hope that this might persuade wavering voters who had hitherto seen this entirely meaningless statement merely printed on paper.
A £30k limestone pledge that has probably been turned into chuckies already.
Con 281 Lab 266 SNP 52 LD 26 UKIP 1 Green 1 Oths 23
I believe that has been showing a little bit of a growing gap for the Tories in the past week. The Tories did have a 20+ lead, then they changed their methodology and the gap got down to single figures and now it is at 15.
I don't think the Sun Front Page is that good, because everybody has seen the image, its a done joke.
You have to have something that will make people stop and look, but its a bit like seeing a Mirror headline with Tories Baby Eating Scum or Mail banging on about immigrants.
But they haven't seen it. Only politically attuned online social media-ish people have seen the bacon butty photo. People like us.
For most Sun readers it will be a surprise. I say this not snobbishly, for most people life is too busy and hard-scrabble to worry about politics.
I would normally agree, like Ed Stone...but that picture...that picture has been used so many times.
I don't think the Sun Front Page is that good, because everybody has seen the image, its a done joke.
You have to have something that will make people stop and look, but its a bit like seeing a Mirror headline with Tories Baby Eating Scum or Mail banging on about immigrants.
I think these stupid personal attacks add nothing to our democracy or our media. They are not even funny.
Monkey Ballots today or Spitting Image in the past are/were clever and incisive. They were both funny and able to make a serious point even if one didn't agree with the point they were making.
The Sun front pages are just sad and bitter. I am not even sure they will change a single vote (at least I hope they won't even though I can't stand Miliband).
People call the Sun a comic. Personally I think that is an insult to comics.
Kinnock in a lightbulb defined the 1992 election - iconic.
I don't think the Sun Front Page is that good, because everybody has seen the image, its a done joke.
You have to have something that will make people stop and look, but its a bit like seeing a Mirror headline with Tories Baby Eating Scum or Mail banging on about immigrants.
But they haven't seen it. Only politically attuned online social media-ish people have seen the bacon butty photo. People like us.
For most Sun readers it will be a surprise. I say this not snobbishly, for most people life is too busy and hard-scrabble to worry about politics.
I would normally agree, like Ed Stone...but that picture...that picture has been used so many times.
Amzing that the Newsnight index put the DUP and Lib Dems in the Tory column. WTF?????? Nothing those parties are saying publicly has suggested they would favour the blues over the reds. However the BBC has to be 'impartial' so can't point out that the Tories are billy no mates.
Amzing that the Newsnight index put the DUP and Lib Dems in the Tory column. WTF?????? Nothing those parties are saying publicly has suggested they would favour the blues over the reds. However the BBC has to be 'impartial' so can't point out that the Tories are billy no mates.
Is a single one of those companies still solvent, which I have been led to believe have alleged links to Craig Whyte. The wash has still to come out on this. Phil Three Names must be waiting for his knock at the door.
Andrew Neil (@afneil) 05/05/2015 23:21 Tomorrow's front pages show British press at partisan worst. All pretence of separation between news and opinion gone, even in "qualities".
Amzing that the Newsnight index put the DUP and Lib Dems in the Tory column. WTF?????? Nothing those parties are saying publicly has suggested they would favour the blues over the reds. However the BBC has to be 'impartial' so can't point out that the Tories are billy no mates.
The LDs have done it once and will do it again. The DUP will go to the highest bidder!
Sky says Letwin negotiating with LDs before polling day to try and agree a coalition,
Not very bright (getting found out) anyway
Why Letwin is viewed as an éminence grise completely baffles me.
Ditto.
I'm sure he's a nice bloke in an unworldy professor sort of way.
But would anyone here want Letwin to manage their own affairs ?
He is a bit like a right wing Ed Miliband...you could see the bumbling disaster wandering around the hallowed halls of an academic institution*, reading some texts and then thinking up some crazy ideas that would never work in the real world, but for gods sake don't let him near anything in the actual real world.
Sky says Letwin negotiating with LDs before polling day to try and agree a coalition,
Not very bright (getting found out) anyway
Any deal would have been pre-agreed by the Quad months ago, unless we're assuming people who've worked hand in glove for five years are completely thick and unable to see a few months ahead.
Is a single one of those companies still solvent, which I have been led to believe have alleged links to Craig Whyte. The wash has still to come out on this. Phil Three Names must be waiting for his knock at the door.
He's just a gullible stooge. Mike Ashley's door getting a chap is big news - hope his share price isn't affected , heart of stone etc..
Don't understand all the activity in Hampstead & Kilburn - the Tories haven't got a chance in a month of Sundays there surely?!
I think a lot of the Tory optimism is about how in 2010 no-one expected them to take the seat and yet they nearly did. Since then, the area has gentrified a lot around the W Hampstead / Kilburn bit.
As a probably useless anecdote, my neighbour said he had been approached by Keir Starmer in Highgate - very nice apparently, but my neighbour gave him an earful over the mansion tax. Starmer apparently then said he has been hearing that a lot. If it is being said in Holborn and St Pancras, I can imagine it is even more so in H&K
Thanks for the info. Still doesn't make sense to me whatsoever! I'll be damned if that's a Tory gain on Friday morning!
Agreed but I don't think you can write it off - the Mansion Tax is the number one issue in London.
I also think Holborn and SP could be interesting in future elections - the north of the constituency around Kentish Town has gentrified massively in the last five years and KX is now going the same way...!
The following is a list of constituencies which Labour has lost because of metropolitan gentrification during the last 25 years:
To be fair it looks more like: Wandsworth Eh That's it
Putney went Conservative in 1979 (as did Fulham), Battersea went Conservative in 1987.
Wandsworth borough as a whole swung strongly to the Conservatives during the 1980s.
Interestingly Labour did well in Wandsworth in 2014 - as they did in Hammersmith & Fulham borough.
There's a limit to the effects of gentrification and excessive gentrification damages the Conservatives - replacing working class voters with middle class voters helped the Conservatives but when those middle class Conservative voters are replaced by rich foreign bankers (or even richer foreign oligarchs) the effect is pro-Labour.
Amzing that the Newsnight index put the DUP and Lib Dems in the Tory column. WTF?????? Nothing those parties are saying publicly has suggested they would favour the blues over the reds. However the BBC has to be 'impartial' so can't point out that the Tories are billy no mates.
The Lib Dems will go with whichever is the biggest party in terms of seats or who can realistically form a working government. So that could quite well be the Tories.
I'd have gone with an Edstone image. The utter poverty of ambition of those ghasty 'pledges' is actually a politically serious point. They've chosen to go with a more visceral approach that this deeply unfortunate looking man must never be Prime Minister.
I'd have gone with an Edstone image. The utter poverty of ambition of those ghasty 'pledges' is actually a politically serious point. They've chosen to go with a more visceral approach that this deeply unfortunate looking man must never be Prime Minister.
Ed took the idea of a blank piece of paper and committed it to stone...but realised he had to put something, anything on it...it is 8ft high after all!
Andrew Neil (@afneil) 05/05/2015 23:21 Tomorrow's front pages show British press at partisan worst. All pretence of separation between news and opinion gone, even in "qualities".
Comments
https://pbs.twimg.com/media/CERfzOAWIAAh4BR.jpg
The Independent's sub-heading catches the eye - "~Seventy per cent of voters think the SNP should not be allowed to veto English laws". That's going to complicate coalition-building for Ed Miliband.
I also think Holborn and SP could be interesting in future elections - the north of the constituency around Kentish Town has gentrified massively in the last five years and KX is now going the same way...!
I will be very surprised if H&K goes blue. It was a 3-way marginal last time, so there's a big LD vote that will have haemorrhaged to Labour, so mansion tax or not, I can't see the Tories winning it now.
I take that as an instruction to vote for the big two to gain a conclusive result, not the muddying of the waters that results from a minor party vote.
Gun, aim at foot Fire.
I am Roy Walker and I claim my Carlisle
This one is pants.
In this crazy election there could even be Tory-LibDem (as in Sheffield) and LibDem-Tory (in the blue-red marginals) since the LDs lost most of the naturally labour supporters post 2010.
https://richardosley.wordpress.com/2015/05/05/morning-update-05-05-15-do-labour-regard-hampstead-and-kilburn-as-a-marginal/
"Tories GOTV operation will be far too thinly spread if they're wasting resouces in NE Derbyshire and Walsall N!"
In this e-mail shot, they are targeting 346 constituencies in E&W.
Anyway, here goes:
CON 283
LAB 278
LD 16
SNP 47 [ I doubt this very much ! ]
GRN 1
PC 3
UKIP 3
SPK 1
Bad luck.
@tedermeatballs: Rangers takeover probe police raid Mike Ashley's HQ http://t.co/0GxHtTPlbB
Take your phone and watch twitter.
You have to have something that will make people stop and look, but its a bit like seeing a Mirror headline with Tories Baby Eating Scum or Mail banging on about immigrants.
Richard Dawkins (@RichardDawkins)
05/05/2015 20:24
I’ve never voted Tory in my life and probably never will. But @Ayaan makes a better case than any I’ve seen. thetimes.co.uk/tto/opinion/co…
Con 281
Lab 266
SNP 52
LD 26
UKIP 1
Green 1
Oths 23
Thanks Scott, though I have a feeling the count itself will be exciting enough!
Not very bright (getting found out) anyway
I've seen play live virtually every top player since 1963, including Pele, and the young Alan Hudson is the best player I have ever seen bar George Best.
Wandsworth
Eh
That's it
http://news.stv.tv/west-central/221738-craig-whyte-agrees-to-sell-film-rights-to-story-of-rangers-collapse/
Nite all.
Monkey Ballots today or Spitting Image in the past are/were clever and incisive. They were both funny and able to make a serious point even if one didn't agree with the point they were making.
The Sun front pages are just sad and bitter. I am not even sure they will change a single vote (at least I hope they won't even though I can't stand Miliband).
People call the Sun a comic. Personally I think that is an insult to comics.
Goodnight all too.
A lot of faux snobbery about.
Letwin is certainly a gift for the local burglars.
http://order-order.com/2015/05/05/times-savages-miliband-endorses-tory-lib-coalition/
Unless you're lying.
I'm sure he's a nice bloke in an unworldy professor sort of way.
But would anyone here want Letwin to manage their own affairs ?
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-south-yorkshire-12972517
http://www.theguardian.com/politics/2011/oct/14/oliver-letwin-investigation-documents-bin
05/05/2015 23:21
Tomorrow's front pages show British press at partisan worst. All pretence of separation between news and opinion gone, even in "qualities".
* which of course he did.
Wandsworth borough as a whole swung strongly to the Conservatives during the 1980s.
Interestingly Labour did well in Wandsworth in 2014 - as they did in Hammersmith & Fulham borough.
There's a limit to the effects of gentrification and excessive gentrification damages the Conservatives - replacing working class voters with middle class voters helped the Conservatives but when those middle class Conservative voters are replaced by rich foreign bankers (or even richer foreign oligarchs) the effect is pro-Labour.
Well done.